Pokemorphs: Pokemon of the Future
by Damos Taranth
Summary: A large rivalry between two aspiring bands is escalated as a wide-scale accident causes the world's population to turn anthro... but thoughts of winning a battle of the bands are wiped from their minds as an unexpected threat causes them to struggle for t
1. Default Chapter

An attempt at a shorter-than-usual fic (It's not hard) that actually will be, shock horror, finished. The idea was not mine, nor is the title or some of the plot; the majority of the characters and some of the writing (including the intro) are the fantastic work of Lugia42/Charmega, and several others have contributed. It's based off a Story Chain (linked here), so if you wish to view the original that's the place to go. Thanks to everyone who contributed, and to Lugia for allowing me to do this. ^_^ 

Update: 15/01/02 - What was originally designed to be a 10-11 chapter work has spiralled off into much more. I apologise for not working on this recently, as I wished to see what direction the chain was taking first.   
The fic will be split into three parts, for good reason - a twist in the plotline and the introduction of a new teller into the chain led to the second part being R-rated. Later on, the chain's originator banned the more adult references and returned the fic to its original PG-13 comparitive goodness.   
The first section is here. One note must be made - a certain confusion (and the lack of pokemon G/S games) led me to believe at the time that Houou was a psychic pokemon at the time of the chain. I had originally changed it so that the Houou and Lugia were swapped, but future complications in the storyline mean that this cannot be - they have been swapped back. So, just pretend that Houou is a psychic-type - or perhaps that it brought out some latent psychic powers in Holly.   
Also, this may mean that one may be written where the other should be - if you see any evidence of this, please tell me so I may fix it. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

A solitary figure stood atop of a cliff, overlooking a human city. His tail waved slowly back and forth as he considered the best approach. The wind ruffled his short grey fur, but he didn't even notice.   
He was a tall Pokémon, almost seven feet in height, vaguely humanoid, with two strong, muscular legs and a pair of powerful arms. He had piercing, cool purple eyes and a long, thick tail.   
Apparently coming to a decision, he lifted his arms up into the air, mumbling a few short words, calling the sky. The magic-like psychic power flowed through his fingertips and into the air above his head. Energy crackled, the air seemed to be sucked in, out, inside out and around as the power gathered... until a blue, swirling hole appeared.   
He was Mewtwo, one of the most powerful Pokémon the world had ever known. He had once attempted to take over the world, but was driven back by none other than a human child, a trainer named Ash Ketchum. Though not very bright, the trainer had shamed him and forced him into hiding in a secret valley.   
Summoning all the power he could muster, he concentrated, making the blue swirl bigger and bigger. Purple lightning played around the edges of the hole, crackling into the very center.   
The human trainer was gone now. He had been for years. A human would usually only live for about a hundred years, but this trainer had met up with an unfortunate accident while flying on his Charizard and was killed. The only living creature capable of opposing Mewtwo... gone, never to be seen again.   
Now, Mewtwo was set on world domination yet again. With the pathetic little human trainer out of the way, nothing would stand between Mewtwo and the creation of a new world... one ruled by him. Not humans.   
His plan? To open a portal to another dimension, bringing the Mewtwo from that reality into his. With double the power... the human world would fall before the Mew clone... and all would be his.   
The blue swirl of energy widened, throwing sheets of purple electricity to the ground. Mewtwo focused his powers hard into the center of the portal, willing for his alternate self to come through to this side.   
This time, the world will be mine,> Mewtwo said to himself, then laughed and shouted to any in range. No human will dare oppose me or my counterpart!>   
It was about then that his carefully created plan fell completely apart.   
A cold line of blue fire streaked across the sky, widening into a huge rift in the clouds. A flock of Pidgeottos flying overhead sqwawked in surprise and veered off, away from the wave of blue power that came rolling through the rift.   
Mewtwo froze in astonishment at what he had done. The rift... the portal... He'd created an inter-dimensional tear, and the other universe was overflowing into this one!   
Mewtwo braced himself as the line of blue fire rushed at him, but it passed over him without doing anything. It seemed to be searching for something. What it was looking for, Mewtwo didn't know. All he wanted to do was escape.   
Mewtwo Teleported out of the mountains, away from the city, away from the blue shockwave that seemed to be raging, searching desperately for something that it could not find.   
And as the psychic Pokémon disappeared in a blue flash, the shockwave continued towards the human city below... 

~-~-~-~

Derek got up early that morning, and got into the shower. He was planning on having a very busy day, even though it was summer and therefore vacation from school. He wanted to go visit his friend Ray and go into the big city for a concert.   
As soon as he stepped in the shower, Derek knew there was something very wrong. Everything looked more blue than usual. He thought about that for a minute, then dismissed it and turned on the water.   
"Yeeeeooooowwwww!" he howled, and shut off the water flow. That had hurt!   
The back of his head itched, and he reached back to scratch it. That's when he got his second surprise of the morning. What felt like three knives slashing across the back of his head followed the movement of his hand.   
"Aaaaahhhhh!" he yelled in pain, and then looked at his hands.   
They were a reddish color, with a claw growing from each fingertip. Of which he had a total of six now. The claws were long and sharp, almost like daggers.   
He got out of the shower, got dressed, and went out to the living room. He was greeted by the sight of a half-human half-Rhydon that might have been his dad. He was basically a human with a drill-like horn coming out of his nose and a strong, thick tail.   
The father and his son stared at each other for a minute, not saying anything at all. Derek's mom chose that point in time to come in.   
Derek jumped away in shock at the sight of a humanoid Persian leaping into the center of the room. She was about four feet tall, with a long curled tail and whiskers on her face. A small red gem was slowly appearing in the center of her forehead.   
Derek's mother immediately began screaming at the two half-Pokémon creatures standing in front of her. Anyone would, after seeing something like that.   
"This is impossible," Derek thought. And at that moment a long red tail ripped out of his shorts. 

~-~-~-~

Over at Ray's house, things were less extreme. Ray had awakened that morning to a burning sensation in his back, but he ignored it. It went away within a few minutes, leaving a strange numbness behind.   
Abruptly, he heard a scream downstairs. It sounded like his mom, but it sounded like something else... a pokemon... was screaming along with her.   
Ray's eyes snapped open. He rushed down the stairs...or tried to. He tripped instantly and went tumbling down the steps. Funny how there was thirteen of them.   
But he finally came to a stop at the base of the stairs, staring up at his mom. She was almost normal, except for the bone helmet completely covering her head and the long muzzle on her face.   
Ray backed away in fear, and instantly felt a slight warmth from his back. He caught sight of a flash of red and yellow over his shoulder, then realized that his shirt was on fire. No, his entire back was on fire!   
But it didn't hurt, strangely enough. Ray calmed down, and after a moment the fire disappeared. He then noticed the reason he had tripped and fallen. His legs were shorter than they should have been, with blunt claws on the end of his toes.   
"What the hell is going on?" Ray asked in shock. 

~-~-~-~

Laura was awake early, even before the sun came up. She was practicing her singing for the music group she was in, singing along with a CD.   
She had her eyes shut as she sang, so she didn't notice the changes right away. All she knew was that her voice was suddenly higher, from an alto to a soprano. It had an odd, misty quality to it as well.   
She stopped singing an opened her eyes. She gave a musical-sounding gasp of shock as she saw that she had changed.   
A rounded beak filled most of her vision, and her eyes had moved to the sides of her head. Two long, black spikes swept back from her eyes. She was covered from head to toe in pure white feathers, with the only exception being a patch of blue-purple feathers on her midsection.   
"Holy crap, I'm turning into a Lugia!" she exclaimed. 

~-~-~-~

Holly, another member of Laura's band, was warming up her keyboard when she began to change. Her skilled playing degenerated into a confused cacaphony as a crest of golden feathers erupted on her forehead, replacing her long brown hair. At the same time, about fifty gold tail feathers fanned out behind her.   
"What the heck?" she demanded, just as her face pushed out in a long grayish-gold beak.   
She heard a scream from the next house over. Running over to the window, she realised it was Aria, who was just waking up to find her arms had become silvery-blue wings and a tall crest of blue feathers on her forehead. She was most obviously on her way to becoming an Articuno.   
Unnoticed by the transforming humans below, the blue wave kept rolling through the sky to the next town... 

~-~-~-~

Back at Derek's house, things were getting tense. Derek's half-Persian mother was transforming faster than anyone else. She was already nearly completely Pokémon.   
Derek's father, on the other hand, had stopped changing at about the halfway point. No one was sure that he wouldn't change any further, but it seemed that he would stay half-Rhydon for the time being.   
Derek hadn't figured out what he was becoming yet, except that he was a fire type. That explained the entire water/shower thing, he thought, but not the actual transformation itself.   
"What is happening to us?" Derek's father demanded through his steel-like muzzle.   
"I don't know," Derek started to say, and was cut off as his face exploded outward in a long red snout. A short red horn popped out of the back of his head and his eyes got wider and changed to dark green-purple. He shrank a little, until he was only about four and a half feet tall.   
"Aw, man!" he exclaimed. "I'm a Charmeleon!" 

~-~-~-~

Over at Ray's house, things were more calm. Until the six-foot-tall Zapdos girl ran by, shrieking in a metallic-sounding voice.   
Startled, Ray instinctively lit up the flame ridge on his back. It took him fifteen seconds to realize what he was doing and calm down, but then another surge of transformation decided to plow into him.   
His face pushed out in a long snout that was mostly tan except for the black stripe running from the tip across the top of his head, broadening as it reached his back. A short tail appeared behind him and his arms got shorter. He suddenly found himself struggling to keep his eyes open any more than a slit.   
That's when Ray knew exactly what he was becoming, in great detail. "I'm turning into a Cyndaquil!" he screamed.   
His flame ridge lit up again, burning away what was left of his shirt before he could calm himself once again. And then, he suddenly realized that he was done changing. He didn't know how he knew, he just...did. He wasn't human anymore, but he clearly wasn't a complete Cyndaquil either.   
He was about four feet tall, with the basic shape of a Cyndaquil on its hind legs. His eyes were a bit more open than a real Cyndaquil's would have been, and his muzzle was a bit shorter to make it easier to speak in English. He had only four fingers on each hand now, which would make it a lot harder to type on the computer.   
Ray was confused. Was he only changing halfway, a strange freak in the world? Not fully Pokémon, not fully human, but somewhere in between. Logically he should have changed completely one way or the other...but, it seemed, that was not to be... 

~-~-~-~

Holly, Laura, and Aria met up in Holly's backyard after a few minutes of frantic running around in circles. Laura already knew she was becoming a Lugia, Aria was halfway to Articuno, and Holly turned out to be a Ho-oh.   
Zelda, the fourth member of the band, finally found the other musicians after yet another few minutes of frantic running in circles. She, much like the others, was partially changed into a legendary bird - predictably, she was a Zapdos.   
Maura, the fifth and final member of the band, finally came around about a half an hour later. Following the pattern, she was also a legendary bird, the one called Moltres. And she didn't walk either. She decided to fly on her near-wings. They, like the others' arms, were like wings except for the dexterious feather-fingers at the ends of the wings.   
"It figures we would all become similar Pokémon," Laura said in her new, higher voice. "But we're all legendary birds. I don't know how we managed THAT."   
"I don't want to be a Zapdos," Zelda complained, apparently not as grateful. "Why couldn't I have been the Articuno?"   
"You think I chose to be like this?" Aria the Articuno shot back. "You're a real zapper, you know that?"   
Zelda perked up at that. "Hey, I think I just got a new nickname! It fits me all over, doesn't it? 'Zapper.'"   
"I'm 'Artic,' then," Aria called out quickly.   
"I'm 'Firebird,'" Maura said, grinning mischeviously.   
"'Gold,'" Holly said, although she couldn't smile around her beak the others knew she was grinning on the inside.   
"And going by the pattern, that makes me 'Silver,'" Laura trilled. "Good. All famous rockbands have weird nicknames of some sort."   
They all laughed, and got to practising, although mostly they were just admiring and adapting to their new forms... 

~-~-~-~

Over the other side of the city, unknown to the legendary birds, their main rival rock band was meeting in the back yard of Eric, their drummer.   
Eric himself was obviously the first one there, and closely resembled an Entei. Richie came next, looking very much like a Raikou.   
Sammy arrived after a minute, not surprising the other two a bit when he turned out to be a Suicune. Chadran followed close behind him, looking extremely close to a Dragonair from the waist down.   
Josh was the last one to arrive, though. The other four boys fell silent as he strode into the yard on his massively powerful legs, a full foot taller than he had been the day before. His violet eyes glittered with amusement, and his thick tail waved back and forth as he walked up to the other band members.   
"It seems there has been a change in plans," he said in a deeper voice.   
"Jeez Josh," Richie stammered. "You're a-"   
"Just call me 'Blue,'" Josh interrupted. No on contradicted him.   
The legendary creatures picked out their own nicknames after a few minutes of staring at their lead singer, wondering what was up. Sammy chose the name "BubbleJet" for reasons unknown to the others. Richie wanted the name "Thunder," Eric got the name "Firedog," and Chadran the Dragonair decided on the name "Drago" for obvious reasons.   
"Good," Josh said after the matter of nicknames had been settled. "Now, let's get to work. We're giving a concert in two weeks, transformations or no transformations. There is no way those girls are going to beat us, no matter what they have become!" 

~-~-~-~

"Ready?" Laura called musically to Zelda, who was fiddling around with her electric guitar.   
"I think so, Silver!" she called back. "What about you, FireBird?"   
The usual drumroll came from the Moltres on the other side of the garage. She grinned around her beak and gave the thumbs-up, which was really hard to do considering none of them had true thumbs to speak of anymore.   
For some strange reason, at that exact instant Holly chose to pound out Beethoven's Third on the keyboard, causing the other four bird morphs to glare at her. She just grinned and switched to one of the band's own written songs, "The Birds."   
"Aar-ahh-aah-_aah!_" Aria sang, warming up. She was the backup singer, but she would never even come close to matching the perfection the Day of the Morph had given Laura. The Lugia's musical voice was perfect for ANYTHING she chose to sing. "We are the Birds, and we never surrender..." she continued singing. Then she stopped and sighed. "The Birds. Whoever thought up that name for our band anyway?" she complained.   
Everyone looked at Zelda. She looked up from her guitar playing and said, "What?" Then she ignored them.   
"How about 'The Trio'?" Holly suggested as she played another song she had composed.   
"Nah, too weird," Maura said.   
Laura's Lugia eyes lit up. "How about the 'Legends Alive'?"   
For some strange reason, that struck everyone as being so damn _cool_. Smiles spread across their faces, or as much as they could do so around the various stages of beaks the girls had, and thus the name of the band was official changed to the Legends Alive. 

~-~-~-~

"You nitwits!" Josh bellowed at the four legendary morphs who, whatever their leader's opinion, were trying to play their best. "You can't do anything right!"   
"We're trying the best we can here, Blue!" Richie shot back.   
Josh glared at him. His eyes began to glow an electric blue. "What did you say?' he demanded coldly.   
"Nothing," Richie said quickly, shrinking back from the evil look in Josh's eyes.   
The lead singer glared at him for a few more seconds, then his eyes changed back to purple and he smiled. "Now all you lot, let's get going. We only have less than two weeks before the Battle of the Bands, and Endangered is going to win it! Right?"   
"Right!" the others chorused. 

~-~-~-~

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Chapter2 The last unearthly notes died away. Artic suddenly burst out laughing.   
"Silver! That's brilliant! Let's see how Josh's lot will beat us now!"   
"We don't know what they might be," warned Zapper. "Josh may-"   
"Who cares? Whatever they are, a Lugia can beat them!"   
"-be Jigglypuff," finished Zapper calmly.   
"Ah." A pause, and a couple of them tried not to laugh at the thought of the ultra-tough Josh being a Jigglypuff morph.   
"I wish I could have been the Lugia," said Artic enviously, eyeing Silver. "Still, this morph has done wonders for my voice, even if it's not as good as yours... There's just ten days until the Battle of the Bands. We'd better get going. Although Silver won't need any practice, with her voice..."   
"Oh, are you still mad that I was the Lugia instead of you?" laughed Silver. "Look, I didn't exactly get a choice of what I was going to turn into. Still, I agree with you. We all need to get some practice in. Even me," she said.   
Artic was certain that she had put the slightest emphasis on the last two words. Still... "You're right. No point wasting my time being jealous. Let's beat those guys!" 

~-~-~-~ 

"For the LAST TIME," Josh said to his group of legendaries, with that sort of semi-patience and calmness that makes an all-out rage look harmless, "You have to wait for my lead! Not taking off on a wild solo! You got that, Drago?"   
Chadran winced. He had tried to get himself a bigger part in their song, but Josh had suddenly gone cold and harsh on them. Overprotective of his part, perhaps? "Got it. Blue."   
"All right then," Josh said, emphasizing his words. "Now we've only got ten days. Let's get going!"   


~-~-~-~  "What are you saying? This could revolutionize our future!" Jack, a half-Arcanine scientist, said. "For god's sakes, it already has! Look at us? How much is this going to change? People mixed with pokemon... battles taking place without the need for pokemon, greater energy and power, I can't see how this could be bad..."   
"You don't get it, do you? There could be harmful side affects we might need to know about." David, a half-Ninetails scientist with a german accent, said.   
"Yes, but..." Jack started.   
"No buts. I always tell you, no matter how good a situation looks..."   
"It could become the worst thing in the world, I know, but..." Jack started.   
"Lets just get back to work." David said sternly. Jack deflated.   
"Yes, sir."   


~-~-~-~  Back at Holly's garage, the band had stopped playing so the singers could test their voices. Silver's voice was incredible, perfect for just about anything she chose to sing. Artic's was practically perfect also, and she ran off her part flawlessly to one of their songs accompanied only by Maura's drums and Holly's keyboard, without Silver overshadowing her.   
But it was obvious she wasn't content. Even when she was singing she'd occasionally throw a jealous glance at the Lugia morph. As she unleashed the final chords of the song and the music faded into the background, she looked down, feeling useless, until she heard the Lugia clapping, though it was rather muffled by the feathers.   
"That was fantastic, Aria!" Laura congratulated her.   
"No... you're just trying to make me feel better..." She said, turning away.   
"No I'm not... Seriously, you're fantastic."   
"Stop comparing yourself to her, Aria." Maura called over the drums, then ran off a line of the song herself. The others cringed slightly. "See? I can't sing. But you can, and it's great."   
"But..."   
"Just do it, or I'll sing." Zelda threatened. Aria laughed, and nodded - the Zapdos's shrill, crackly voice was completely unsuited to any type of song.   
Holly laughed too. "Yeah, I'm not so great either. But these make it easier to play, I think." She held up her winglike arms, the fingers elongenated and feathered. "And they're pretty fun too..." With two heavy flaps, she lifted herself into the air and dived across the garage, before swooping back and grazing the wall to return to where she started.   
"Anyway, should we take it from the top?"   
Zapper flicked her guitar back on as the two singers readied theirselves for song. A short set of drumbeats, then the other instruments came in...   
With a deafening crash, Zapper's electric guitar fell to the floor. The speakers practically blew up from the feedback, and all the birds covered their ears...or where they used to be, at least.   
"Oops," Zapper said, looking sheepishly at the instrument. The sharp feathers on her shoulders had severed the guitar strap, and the long feather-fingers weren't built to take that sort of weight that suddenly. The others sighed.   
"We've barely got ANY practice in AT ALL." Artic muttered. "Is the guitar okay?"   
Zapper sat down and gave a strum, and it came out fine, if just a little off tune. She fiddled with the tuning, and tried again, getting a perfect chord. "It'll be fine."   
"Good. Come on, we've got to get a new strap for that thing. If we don't hurry up, Josh's lot WILL beat us, no matter how good Silver's voice is." This statement appeared to be lost to the ears of the other members of Legends Alive. Artic sighed again and began singing anyway, in her new, somewhat more confident voice.   


~-~-~-~  Endangered was in the middle of playing their theme when Josh suddenly stopped singing and turned away, down further into the city. The band's playing faded away they realised he wasn't accompanying them.   
He cocked his head. "What was that?"   
"What was what, Blue?" BubbleJet asked.   
Josh stared away for a minute, then shook his head and said "Nothing," turning back to them. "Let's start again. From line five. FireDog, start us off..."   
Drums echoed over the neighbourhood, followed by a hard guitar riff, quickly joined by another... and the voices rang out in heavy, dark song... 

~-~-~-~  As the scientists worked, they were finding themselves becoming more and more confused about this transformation. There was no evidence of what had triggered it, what it had changed beside the physical form...   
Jack studied the cells beneath the microscopes. A natural Arcanine's, a full humans, and a sample of his own flesh... it was a perfect mix. Halfway between the two.   
_What on earth could have done such a thing to everyone on earth?_   
"AHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOO!!" Everyone in the lab started as screams sounded from the above floor of the laboratory. Jack immediately headed for the stairs at a run, and soon found his Ninetails partner running at his side, while others followed behind.   
When they got up, they soon spotted the problem. It was a Vaporeon morph, one of their co-workers, crouched over something on the ground. As he heard them approaching he twisted and gave a low growl, crouching in anticipation of attack.   
His jaws, face, and the front of its lab coat were covered in blood. David spun onto the others as Jack, somewhat larger and stronger than the other, stared the approaching morph down.   
"Close the windows!" David roared. "Get some tranquilizer guns! I know we've got some in this place!" Suddenly it charged full-on at the Arcanine morph, ramming into him... but he stood his ground. As he struggled with the maddened morph, the others scurried about following David's commands. Shortly afterwards, the morph had a pair of darts sticking out of his back, and Jack was supporting his unconscious form.   
"Alright, let's get him back down in the basement" ordered David. The strong Arcanine morph scooped up the attacker with little difficulty and carried him down.   
"Well, David, for once, it looks like you were right." Jack conceded, moving down the stairs. But his friend wasn't interested in bragging.   
Most of the scientists stopped at the stairs leading down. David turned back to them. "Oh, and make sure the media doesn't hear about this! The last thing we need is everyone panicking."   
"Yes, sir," The scientists chorused and reluctantly wandered away from the scene.   
Nobody saw the Electabuzz morph running away through the forest. "This will make the story of the century!" He cried to himself. He'd just come to see what progress they'd made on the Day of the Morph... but this... 

~-~-~-~ 

Josh had worked Endangered hard into late evening, until a small group of Zubat morphs flew overhead, their loud, near-supersonic voices drowning out the band. All the legendary morphs looked up, and were startled to notice how dark the sky was. 

"Can we go now?" Thunder pleaded. "I'm getting tired of all this, and my paws are killing me. It's not easy to play the electric guitar now, and besides; it's really late." 

The other band members murmured agreement, and Josh sighed. "All right. But be back here tomorrow morning at ten AM sharp!" 

~-~-~-~

"I think that's enough practice for now," Laura said as she glanced out the garage door. The sky was already dark blue, with stars twinking above. "We'll meet up tomorrow afternoon, say about two?" 

Everyone agreed and packed up their instruments. But still, Laura felt a bit uneasy. When Artic had stopped singing and looked outside, she had sensed something as well. A strange presence, focused on them. 

_Oh well_ Laura thought as she flew home. _I guess I'll have to figure this out tomorrow._   


~-~-~-~

Some distance away, a pair of eyes focused on the girls as they left Holly's backyard one by one. A mixture of awe, envy and hatred flashed in the pupils for a second, before they turned away and their owner vanished into the shadows...   



	3. Chapter 3

Chapter3 The whole band wandered away from the practice area at a slow pace, all dead tired. Sammy and Richie lived nearby, and Josh seemed untiring and was gone as soon as he'd made the announcement. Chadran, however, had a nice long slow slither home.   
_ "Ten AM,...Sharp?"_ Chadran muttered to himself once he got far enough away from the others. _"Josh has either lost his mind, or gained a fine set of..."_   
His train of thought was derailed by a large thunder clap.   
"Looks like rain," He sighed to himself, turning his head to the sky and started moving faster. He was by no means used to this new form, lacking legs. The long snake-like tail was a very weird feeling, not to mention the embarrasment of wearing something very like a skirt as he could no longer wear pants...   
The storm broke long before he made it home. Although he was of a water-friendly type, it soaked his clothes and wet the road, making getting home all the harder...   
Sighing again, resigned to his fate, he continued home.

~-~-~-~ 

Eric, unable to sleep due to his morph's instinctive aversion the pouring rain outside, sat at his drum kit and pounded. Though the drums were padded so as not to wake his parents and as such could not be heard over the ferocious storm, he could hear it in his mind as if playing full blast at a concert.   
And he felt himself fumble several times in a row, before completely losing the rhythm and falling out. No... drumming when barely awake just didn't work...   
He crawled his way back to his bedroom and flopped onto his bed, but sleep wouldn't come, even after another half an hour. Glancing at the clock, he groaned. Well past one o'clock... if he wanted to be up and ready for practice tomorrow, he'd have to be ready _soon_...   
Pulling his window up, he looked out, trying to ignore the biting cold of the wind and rain... They'd win the battle of the bands. They had to win. No matter what Josh's doubts may be, they were good...   
But those girls... What could they be? There had always been friction between the two groups. They'd met at a previous battle of the bands, about a year ago, well before the Day of the Morph... both groups had blown the crowds away. They'd tied for first. Both groups were considered near-celebrities throughout the city.   
But this one was a lot larger... that had just been a little one organised by a local radio station. This one was a full-blown concert. Although other ameteur bands would be participating, it was obvious that it would be little more than a showdown between these two bands... And it was rumoured that agents of at least one record company would be present at the concert. If they played well enough, they might be able to actually make it big time...   
The intense cold finally drove Eric beyond his ability to stand it, and he slammed the window shut. He had to sleep...

~-~-~-~ 

A Growlithe morph was fighting for his life.   
He'd been running home, to try to get out of the rain, when a huge, dark figure had appeared out of nowhere and sprawled him on the road. Fighting half-blindly through the darkness and debilitating rain, his fire attacks virtually useless, he didn't seem to have much of a chance...   
A foot flew from the darkness, and he leapt back, avoiding it. Whatever was attacking him was only using physical attacks, but he'd been hit by one and, while by no means weak, it wasn't nearly as powerful as a fighting type - a fighter of that size could snap him in half with one punch. And no rock or ground type would ever be seen in this weather...   
Another foot flashed forward, a sweep this time. What _was_ this thing? He jumped it. Luckily, it didn't seem to be quite as fast as him...   
He turned tail and fled from the strange being, and was rewarded by an elbow to the head, leaving him flat on the road and in a rather large puddle of water. Coughing, spluttering and feeling rather weak, he pulled himself up...   
A thick, muscular tail connected, right in the stomach. The Growlithe was tossed into the air to land painfully on the concrete...   
The tall, dark shape stood over him for a moment before letting out a deep laugh, which was swallowed up by the rain. A minute later, it had vanished, leaving nothing but puddles.   
Closer inspection showed the Growlithe morph was also gone...

~-~-~-~ 

By morning, the rain had cleared somewhat, down to a fairly light drizzle. Josh's band all met up at Eric's house, although he refused to move out into the lawn for fear of the light drizzle, although Sam was quite effectively diverting the rain to avoid it hitting the rather valuable instruments. The others declined to enter his rather cramped garage, and settled for him playing from in there.   
Josh was eager to practice, but it turned out harder than he thought. The light electric energy used by Richie to power his guitar was conducted by the wet ground, causing Sammy quite a bit of irritation. The entire band seemed to be a little high-strung, fatigued, not working their best. He sighed, deciding that his usual over-threatening attitude really wasn't helping the band, trying something else...   
"Come on, guys! We need to win! If we beat those girls, we might get a CD. That's what we want, isn't it?"   
"We don't even know what the girls are yet." Sammy pointed out.   
"Yeah... for all we know they might not even be able to perform anymore..."   
"We don't know if they're better, or worse, or whatever."   
Josh thought about that for a moment. "We'll have a bit of a break."   
The others took a moment to take this in. Blue usually didn't give breaks until they couldn't lift their paws to play another note. "Huh?"   
"I think we should go take a look at what the girls are. See what they're doing." He seemed a little hesitant.   
Everyone cheered up at this idea, leaping to their feet. But Blue waved them down. "Only one of us. We don't want them to know what we are. And one can sneak around a lot better than five. The rest of us can keep practising."   
"I'll go." Sammy immediately volunteered.   
"Hnn?"   
"I'm the fastest here." He grinned a long, canine grin. "I've been looking up some info on us. I can work best in the rain. And anyway, I'm sick of getting the hotfoot from Thunder."   
Josh thought. "Okay. You going by...?"   
"Bus. I should be back in a couple hours."   
"Okay. Just watch them a little while. See what they are, whether they've still got a chance, then come straight back, okay?"   
"Right." The Suicune morph bounded off, after storing his bass guitar in the garage. A couple of seconds later, the rain once again began falling onto Richie, Josh and Chadran.   
"Oh man!" Richie complained, running under the roof, trying to cover his guitar and amp. The other two ran in with the speakers and other paraphenalia.   
Josh checked them over. "No damage. Come on, let's play."

~-~-~-~ 

Zelda worked furiously, fiddling with the speakers. As the techno-whiz of the group, she'd been more annoyed than anyone to find one of the speakers weren't working. Her long, feather-like fingers weren't helping, nor were the charges of electricity she was unintentionally but continually letting out.   
Hmph. And Aria was complaining about being the Articuno. She would've swapped places with her quite happily. Electricity wasn't her favorite type.   
The others were out having a break, getting some snacks and a new strap for her guitar, while she was stuck here trying to fix the machines. They should be back soon... Hmph...   
Growling, she kicked the speaker. Trying to ignore the pain in her foot, she cursed for a while before returning to the speaker. Fiddling with wires, cutting, stripping and connecting with her razor-sharp feathers, she hooked it up to her guitar again and brushed her wing over the strings. Success! And just in time...   
The other four winged in, Holly with a backpack. She quickly unpacked it and tossed her friend a new, somewhat more reinforced guitar strap and a bottle of Sprite.   
"Right... you got it working?"   
"Yep. Now, let's get to it!"   
Within five minutes they'd all set up and were ready to play again. Laura looked at the others.   
"Ready?"   
The others gave a chorus of "Yep!", Zelda a little behind as she took a swig of her drink before hefting her instrument.   
"Right. Start us off, Gold!"   
The keyboard's music was quickly joined by the other instruments, then by the fantastic combonation of Aria and Laura's voices, still never failing to impress any of the band or anyone else who passed.   
Or the rather stunned Suicune morph watching from the nearby bushes.

~-~-~-~ 

The Vaporeon morph snarled and snapped at the restraints, but it was to no effect. David and Jack watched pityingly as it blew a Water Gun at them, and it dissipated harmlessly across a forcefield.   
"I can't understand it... what could cause him to snap like that?"   
"Look at him carefully." David said, apparently not hearing Jack's question.   
"Huh?"   
"Look at him closely. He's changed."   
Jack scrutinized the Vaporeon. "Hmm... I don't..."   
"Look carefully. His very body shape is changing."   
David looked even closer. "Maybe..."   
"No, definately. Look at his arms and legs. They bend forward slightly from the body before going to the restraints. The torso is becoming narrower. And he's shrunk."   
Now that he knew what to look for, David realised what his colleage was saying was true. "But... what..."   
"He's becoming more Vaporeon. Losing his humanoid shape."   
David reeled back. "But... that hasn't happened since... why would it happen now?"   
"I'm not sure. But if I'm any judge, and this keeps going, that guy's going to be a pure-bred pokemon within a couple of days."   
"Will it happen... to others?"   
"We have to assume so. Come on, we've got to keep working. We have to find the cause for this. And if there's any way to prevent it."   
"Before this leaks out to the media."   
"Exactly. Come on, let's move."

~-~-~-~ 

"Honey! Time for breakfast!" Called a woman, a Sandslash morph. "Come on! Get down here, it's getting cold!"   
Not getting a response, she went upstairs to wake her son, an Ekans. Looking into his room, she found he wasn't in his bed.   
"Honey, where are you?" She called, searching the various rooms. Coming back to his room, she found him coiled behind the door.   
"What are you doing there, huh?" She asked, confused. Her son twisted his head up to look in her eyes.   
She felt paralysis lock her muscles as her son Glared at her. She managed to let out a whimper.   
"W-w-what are you doing?"   
He hissed trimphantly and struck, long fangs sinking into her side. She had just enough time to notice he didn't have any arms anymore before sinking into oblivion... 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter4 A Seadra morph was becoming ever more impatient, waiting outside her house.   
"Come on, where is he already?" She growled to herself. "He only lives around the block. Are we going out for lunch or not?"   
After a few more minutes, she grew tired of waiting and stormed off, towards her boyfriend's house...   
...where a very interesting scene was going on.   
The Pidgeot had a broken wing, cracked rather nastily. He would have been clutching it in agony if a tall, dark figure wasn't sitting on his back, pounding his head against the floor.   
However, the attack stopped when the doorbell rang. "Hmm? Who's that?" whispered the strange guy, who had broken in and started beating him up for no apparent reason.   
"Hey, you! Open this door! What happened to lunch? I've been waiting for you for hours!"   
A quick glance at the clock showed that this was probably quite an exaggeration. But the figure on his back laughed.   
"Your girlfriend? Hm... I'll get her for you." The Pidgeot felt the weight come off his back, but was in no condition to do anything... but he tried to pull himself together... maybe escape, or warn his girl...   
"Come on, open up! I know you're in here!" Screeched the Seadra, slamming her fists against the door. But she paused for a moment as a pained scream echoed throughout the house.   
"Wha... what the..." She didn't get any further before the door and a good section of the house in front of her exploded, throwing her back. By the time the neighbours got there, there was no sign of anyone... 

~-~-~-~

"I'm back." Blue called. The others looked up.   
"Any sign of him?"   
"Yeah... you were gone for ages."   
"No... he should be back by now." Blue growled. "I'm getting bored. We'll go and look for him, if he's not here in another hour."   
"By the way... did you hear that explosion a while ago?"   
"Huh?"   
"Something blew up, over that way." He pointed. "Not too far away."   
"Blew up?" He looked a little concerned. "No, I didn't hear anything."   
"Hmm... you would've been closer to it than us."   
"Yeah... well... you two have much better hearing than me."   
"You're right, I didn't hear anything either." Chadran piped up.   
"Well, it probably doesn't concern us." Blue said, closing the conversation. "On second thought, we need BJ. Come on, we'll split up and look for him. I'll be there fastest anyway..." And Blue was gone.   
The other three shrugged. It wasn't much good without their whole band anyway, and they were all eager to learn what was up with their mate and the birds... 

~-~-~-~

BJ raced through the street, looking for cover. His spying job had gone horribly wrong.   
He must've made some sort of noise, or something, because two of the band had suddenly stopped playing and snapped their heads in his direction, the Lugia and the Houou. He hadn't heard the conversation after that, but it was quite obvious that they had seen something.   
He probably hadn't helped by panicking, and now all five of them were out hunting for whoever had been watching them from across the road...   
He heard a noise overhead and ducked under a large tree as the Zapdos soared overhead. Chancing a sprint to the alley behind the house, he was dismayed to hear a musical, triumphant call from the Lugia.   
Running madly, panting heavily, the Suicune ducked into a doorway and watched from the shadows as all five birds passed overhead. They circled a few times, then on a call from one of them, he didn't know which, spread out again. He watched for a moment, then risked another run.   
Running at a speed that the fastest athletes couldn't match, he tore down the alley. He felt, rather than saw, one above him... But she gave no indication of having seen him.   
_Damn, this is gonna be hard..._   
But all thought of running was wiped from his mind as he felt a flamethrower rake across his back. They were attacking him! Screeching to a halt, he glared up at the Moltres, and shot out a Bubblebeam. The bird screamed in pain and took a nosedive, but was saved by the Lugia, and within seconds the other three had dropped down around him.   
"What do you think you're doing?" Gold snarled. "What did you attack Maura for?"   
_Maura... right, that's one identified._   
"She attacked me first!" He snarled right back. "Look!"   
Scorch marks decorated his back. The other birds looked suprised.   
"Who are you?"   
"Hmph." He refused to say anything.   
"I know you. You're Sammy, from Josh's band!"   
_Crap..._   
"So that's what you're here for? Spying on us? Trying to cripple our friends?"   
"I wasn't going to hurt you! She attacked me first!"   
"No I didn't..." Maura and Laura stepped into sight. "I didn't even see you!"   
"Then where did I get these?"   
"Probably got one of your friends to do it beforehand. Just the sort of thing you lot would pull."   
"Right... you attack me and then blame my friends for it." He snarled. "Well, if you don't mind, I've got a practice to get to."   
"Hey, you can't just run off like that." Laura said, her eyes narrowing, as she stepped in his way.   
"What, you're gonna stop me?" He tried to brush her aside, trying to ignore a strange prickling sensation in his limbs and face.   
"Yes. Why are you here?" Laura remained firm.   
"I don't have to answer to you," he snarled, and tried to shove her aside a little harder, snapping menacingly. However, somehow he managed to get his jaws around one wing, and bit deep.   
Silver was now completely enraged. "Now you're attacking me! That does it!" She clapped both wings over his head, which only seemed to enrage him more.   
"Hydro pump!" Water gushed from his mouth, blowing the Lugia back against a building, where she slumped to the ground. The others gave yells of protest as BJ began to run.   
"Don't hurt my friends!" Zelda screeched as only a Zapdos can, her body alive with electricity and eyes glowing a brilliant electric yellow. "ZAP CANNON!"   
Electricity from her outspread wings and the rest of her body gathered into a point at her beak, until there was a huge glowing yellow spark there... which fired forward at their thunder-weak rival. His screams of pain were cut off as Aria let off the Icebeam she had been charging, freezing the Suicune in a block of ice, held in a rather uncomfortable-looking, pain-wracked position.   
Laura slowly got up from where she lay, and looked at the damage to her wing. "Hmmm... doesn't look too bad."   
"You should probably get it checked for rabies though."   
"Not funny."   
"Man..." Zelda looked a little scared. "I didn't mean to hit him that hard."   
"Oww..." Maura groaned. "What did he attack me for?"   
"Did you attack him?"   
"No... I never saw him. First thing I know, I've got a Bubblebeam half-killing me."   
"Weird... Sammy was never the violent type. I'd expect that from Josh, maybe, but..."   
"Well, let's leave him here."   
"Huh? Will he be okay in there?"   
"Don't worry. He'll live. Suikun are made to take low temperatures, and it'll melt off eventually."   
The five birds walked away from the scene, none of them noticing a bright-eyed, dark-swathed figure on the rooftop above watching with amusement. 

~-~-~-~

When Eric and Richie got there, Josh was waiting for them. His look was somewhere between annoyance and amusement.   
"So... have you found him?"   
Josh snorted and waved at something around the corner. Looking, they found the rather large ice block and its unhappy occupant.   
"Whoa... What happened?"   
"No idea. Wanna let him out?"   
Eric shrugged and held out his hands, releasing waves of heat, and soon the ice ran into water. Eric jumped back a bit, but soon realised the water was evaporating around his feet anyway, and continued.   
Soon he'd managed to free Sammy's head. He screamed for a moment, then fell into a fit of coughing. Eric continued to free the rest of his body, as Josh moved to question the Suicune.   
"What happened?"   
"Huh? Where... what..." BJ looked around in a panic, finally realising the predicament he was in. Eric managed to free one of his arms.   
"We found you here, trapped in that iceblock. What happened?"   
"Oh man... I saw the girls... They attacked me..."   
"What?"   
"Yeah... they're all birds... legendary birds..."   
"Hmm... did you see them singing?"   
BJ gulped and nodded. "Yeah. The Lugia's their main voice. Absolutely fantastic."   
"Damn..."   
"Maura's the Moltres, she attacked me. They denied it afterwards, but look at my clothes!" He twisted as much as he could while most of his body remained incased. "Then the bitches got all mad when I retaliated, and put me in this - after hitting me with a Zap Cannon..."   
"Hmph... come on, we're going home."   
"What? No way! I'm gonna get them back for..."   
Blue grabbed BJ by the muzzle. "Oh, yeah, that's gonna look good isn't it? Jealous band going over to beat up their rivals? We could get arrested. We wouldn't be allowed in the Battle of the Bands. Re-e-eally smart."   
BJ looked shocked. "Oh..."   
"Yeah. So just get out of there and let's go home."   
Josh stalked away as Eric melted the last of the ice. Just as the Suikun was stretching muscles locked by ice, the leader spun around.   
"Sammy... there's something... different about you. Did they do anything else?"   
"No... How different?"   
"I don't know... you just look different."   
The other two looked at him too. "Yeah... maybe..."   
Sammy raised his eyebrows. "I don't know. Come on, we should go."   
He attributed the pains in his limbs, chest and face to being trapped so long in the ice... 

~-~-~-~

Sammy was walking aimlessly around his area that night.   
Josh's comment was eating away at him. He was different? It could be paranoia... but even as he walked, his legs felt funny. The pains had lasted for ages, until he had managed to calm down, when they had mysteriously died away.   
But it was getting to him. He couldn't sleep. He'd gone out to take a walk in the cool night air, but there was something disturbing in the air... a prescence...   
He was so lost in his thoughts that he never saw the woman coming. She collided with him, knocking him over.   
"Oh... I'm sorry... I didn't see you..." She babbled. The Suikun focused - it was a Kadabra morph, and she looked like she'd been crying rather badly.   
"That's okay... what's wrong?"   
"Huh? Oh... It's my husband. He said he was going for a walk... but now he's gone..."   
"Gone?"   
"As he was leaving I heard a scream. I looked outside, and there was no sign of him. I searched for him psychically... nothing!"   
"What?"   
"It's impossible... unless he were dead... but he's a Graveller, and I can't see how there could be no sign of him..."   
"Hmm..."   
"I mean, it's impossible! Nothing could move something that big, that heavy, that fast..."   
"Could it be possible he's beyond your range?"   
"Huh?"   
"Maybe something teleported him somewhere, I don't know..."   
"Maybe..."   
"I've got a friend who's a powerful psychic... maybe he'll be able to help you. I'll give him a ring."   
She nodded thankfully. He strode back to his house and scooped up the phone, pressing Josh's button on the speed-dial.   
It rang...   
And rang...   
And rang...   
"Hello?" Said someone on the other end of the line.   
"Graham!" He said, recognising the voice of Josh's dad, who he had yet to meet in anthro form. "Did I wake you up?"   
"No, I'm nocturnal now." He laughed. "Golbat. Makes it a little harder to pick up the phone, though. That's Sammy, isn't it?"   
"Yeah."   
"I think Josh said you were... Suikun? Lucky guy. Your whole band's pretty lucky."   
"Yeah..."   
"Anyway, what are you calling at this hour for? You should be asleep! Or are Suikuns nocturnal too?"   
"No. I just need to talk to Josh about something..."   
"I'm sorry, he left a while ago. Said something about wanting to test his powers. I don't blame him, if I had gotten that morph I wouldn't stop testing them."   
"No kidding."   
"He's been acting a little weird lately. Sometimes really confident, like he's laughing about something, something not very nice by his expression. But sometimes he's really drawn into himself, thoughtful and depressed..."   
"I know what you mean."   
"Do you want me to give him a message?"   
"Oh... no, never mind. I'll talk to him tomorrow."   
"Fine. Seeya, Sammie!"   
The phone hung up. Sammy went back outside to the Kadabra.   
"I'm sorry, he's not home. I'll talk to him tomorrow. If you give me your address, I'll keep in contact..."   
"Sure..."   
She scribbled down her home address and he waved goodbye before going to bed.   
On a thick branch of a tree down the street, two glowing eyes illuminated an evil smile on a shadowy figure, though it was seen by no-one... 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter5 It would be nice to say the next week went by in a flash, but that would be an outright lie.   
Panic gripped the populous as the frequency of stories of maddened morphs grew by the day. Scientists worked day and night to discover an antidote - or failing that, at least the cause - but to no avail. It happened differently for many - for some, their minds would be the first to go, leaving them a savage beast in a friendly body. Others' minds kept perfectly stable, while their bodies slowly adapted away from the human side.   
It was soon discovered that those whose minds were lost didn't go completely out of it, when a group of them made a raid on a police station. The attack was well-organised and planned, and the station went down easily. There was often no way of telling whether a morph was normal or not. It became dangerous to walk the streets. Riots were commonplace. Houses were burnt to the ground regularally. It was very rare to find someone who hadn't had some of their friends and family lost, either to madness themselves or to the madness of others...   
But the Battle of the Bands wasn't being cancelled, no way.   
When the day finally arrived, crowds came from all over the place, to get their minds off the horrible goings-on of the world and lose themselves in what promised to be a day of fantastic music...   
After months of practising, and then trying to adapt to their new forms, the two bands didn't think they were quite ready. Especially since BJ was now almost fully Suicune. He was basically a Suicune on its hind legs that had a human brain and the power of speech. His paws were still good enough to play his guitar, but every now and then he would accidentally hit a wrong note.   
FireDog and Thunder also showed signs of becoming more Pokemonlike, but not nearly as much as BJ had. All the band members kept the power of speech and the ability to stand on their hind legs. None lost the power to play their instruments, and for this they were very thankful. In Legends Alive, though, the girls had barely changed at all. Everyone was a tiny bit more birdlike, but that was it. No major changes.   
The crowds were roaring, the lights were flashing, the bands were pumped... And it began!   
"Welcome to the Battle of the Bands!" the announcer said. "I'll tell ya folks, this was almost canceled. But thanks to the insistance of the two band leaders of the Legends Alive and Endangered, this concert will take place in just a moment. First up will be the band Legends Alive!"   
The five girls took their places on stage amongst screams and catcalls, and set up their equipment. The TV reporters began to roll the tapes.   
"This song is dedicated to my boyfriend Mark, who was fully changed into a Staryu a few days ago," Silver said as the talking in the audience died down. "He is no longer human in any way, and I will miss him." She stepped away from the microphone and whispered, "Mark, this is for you." The entire auditorium fell silent as Silver began to sing, with Artic as backup.

"I will remember you.   
Will you remember me?   
Don't let your life pass you by.   
Weep not for the memories.

Remember the good times that we had?   
I let them slip away from us when things got bad.   
How clearly I first saw you smilin' in the sun.   
Wanna feel your warmth upon me, I wanna be the one.

I will remember you.   
Will you remember me?   
Don't let your life pass you by.   
Weep not for the memories.

I'm so tired but I can't sleep.   
Standin' on the edge of something much too deep.   
It's funny how we feel so much but we cannot say a word.   
We are screaming inside, but we can't be heard.

But I will remember you.   
Will you remember me?   
Don't let your life pass you by.   
Weep not for the memories.

I'm so afraid to love you, but more afraid to lose.   
Clinging to a past that doesn't let me choose.   
Once there was a darkness, deep and endless night.   
You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light.

And I will remember you.   
Will you remember me?   
Don't let your life pass you by.   
Weep not for the memories.

And I will remember you.   
Will you remember me?   
Don't let your life pass you by.   
Weep not for the memories.   
Weep not for the memories..." 

~-~-~-~  A small hole in the ceiling, mostly covered up, let a little light shine through. Nobody noticed, as the bright, multicoloured spotlights that shone upon the stage would call far more attention than a little daylight.   
Just off to the side, the shadowy figure perched, tossing something up and down in his hands, as he listened to the girls' music. He hated to admit it... but they WERE good...   
He smiled his evil smile. Not that it would do them much good, once he was done with them...   
The thing he was tossing up went a slightly unexpected direction, and his hand missed it. He grunted in suprise, made two grabs for it, missed, then as a last resort tried to hit it back up with his tail. It didn't work, and it flew out into the crowd.   
He cursed as he lost sight of it, among the thousands of dancing fans. Hmph... damn... Well, it didn't matter that much...   
As he turned back to the band, he realised they were about finished. Good... Wrenching open the panel again, he moved out onto the rooftop, heading for the stage door at the back of the hall...   
The Legends Alive would soon be getting the suprise of their lives... 

~-~-~-~  As the girls slugged through their second and last song, Holly was becoming a little nervous. Something was seriously wrong with her keyboard.   
She'd noticed quite a bit of heat as the first song finished, but she'd assumed that was of her own doing - she was half fire-type, and understandably very nervous. But about halfway through the second she'd felt the heat coming from inside the instrument, and seen the heat rising, and knew that this was not good.   
She'd twisted her arms slightly, to wave them a little and cool the board. While it might have felt a bit silly, the crowd liked it - the Houou feathers resembled a shimmering rainbow as they waved up and down. She hit a couple of bad notes, but it wasn't noticed above the madness of the other instruments.   
She managed to slow it, but it was obvious the board wasn't going to take much more. It lasted just until the song ended, and exploded in a shower of sparks just as the final chords died away. While it shocked all the birds beyond belief, the crowd roared, thinking it some rather good special effects.   
Laura thanked the crowd while the others moved offstage, Artic helping Gold heft her rather destroyed instrument away. Another band took the stage, a group of rock and ground pokemon with some suitably corny pun for a name, but the birds were too busy looking at the board to pay much attention.   
"Man... what happened?"   
"I don't know, it's been getting worse since the start." Holly said, still in slight shock as it had blown up right under her beak. "Do you want to take a look at it, Zelda?"   
"I won't be able to fix it, but I might be able to tell you why it happened." She said, crouching next to the board. The others let her have some time, and looked towards the stage.   
"No competition." Aria remarked after a moment. "Their music isn't bad, but their singer is awful."   
The others nodded. The Day of the Morph hadn't helped this band. The lead Onix's voice was too low and rather gravelly, and the Sandslash guitarist who occasionally came in with him was little better. Their music was good, however, and the people were still dancing happily.   
"Josh's band is up next." Maura said, looking at a timetable she'd had stored in her pocket.   
"Hm? And how many after that?"   
"Seven other bands."   
"Ten in all, that's right. Well, Josh's should be the only one we really have to look out for, right?"   
"Probably."   
"Oh man..." Zelda moaned from behind them.   
"What?"   
"This was no accident. Somebody messed with this keyboard, someone who knew what they were doing."   
"Are you sure?"   
"Have a look." She held up a small bunch of wires. They'd all been cut, and several had been rearranged and reconnected.   
"Sabotage?"   
"I'd say so."   
"Who'd do that?"   
As the Rock band's chords died away, the announcer introduced the Endangered.   
"I think I could offer a pretty good guess."   
"Come on... we still made it. And with Silver's voice, how on earth is Josh gonna beat us?"   
The others were silent, staring at the stage... 

~-~-~-~  The Endangered had quite an entrace planned. The girls were quite shocked to see how much Sammy had changed since they had last spotted him, but he looked quite confident by the way he hefted his guitar. Beside him were a tough-looking Entei with a toothy grin, taking his place at the drumset, and a viscious Raikou holding another guitar. A Dragonair morph slithered on with a microphone.   
"You don't think that's Josh, do you?"   
"No... that's Chadran, if I'm any judge."   
"Well, where's Josh?"   
"Maybe he's too changed to make it."   
"No, you heard the announcement. Josh insisted the show go on. He wouldn't do that, unless he could participate."   
As one, the three legend-dog-morphs started playing... and as they did, they all blew an attack towards the centre of the stage.   
Fire, ice and electricity collided and exploded in a storm of sparks and shards... and in the wake of the explosion stood the last thing they needed. Tall, powerful, and incredibly wicked-looking, stood the last thing they needed.   
Josh was a Mewtwo.   
As he began singing, they saw that these guys did, indeed, have a chance at beating him. His voice was loud and sounded slightly warped, and it was pretty-much perfect for the song they sung. As he danced madly around the stage, he made sure to shoot a sneering, confident glance in their direction.   
"Oh man..."   
"We've got to do something about this..." Gold said, moving back to the keyboard. "This belongs to the people running the concert. They'll make us pay for it."   
"It's not actually that damaged on the outside." Zelda said. "We might be able to fix it. I'm not going to try though, we need a professional. I might make it worse."   
"Should we go out and find one?"  
"Yeah, I'll go." Gold said. "I don't like this music anyway."   
She moved towards the door, but Zelda called out to her. "I'll come too."   
"Yeah... you know the best places."   
"Yeah... and it's not safe to be out by yourself these days, legendary or not."   
"True. Well, let's go."   
The two left through the back door of the concert hall. As they took wing and soared off over the city, neither of them saw a dark figure detach itself from the wall and follow...

~-~-~-~ 

Throughout the city, the riots were getting worse without people there to offer resistance. Quite a lot of the still-sane people were holed up in the concert hall, dancing wildly.   
Many of the maddened riotors knew this.   
They wanted destruction.   
They wanted death.   
And there was one place where that would be available in abundance...   
Unknown to its inhabitants, pokemon were gathering from the entire city, to encircle the building...   
This was going to be messy...

~-~-~-~ 

The two girls flew hard, Gold in front. Though it was Zapper who knew where they were going, the electric bird didn't have anything near the flying speed as the Houou. Gold would fly ahead for a while, then hover in wait for her friend.   
The sky was unusually empty. Gold flew in silence, simply enjoying herself in the cool air, nothing was out of place...   
There was a sudden _whoosh_... she felt herself pushed down slightly by a downdraft. Strange.   
"Did you feel that, Zelda?" She called back. No answer. "Zelda?"   
She spun in midair, and hovered, scanning the horizons. Zelda was gone without a trace... 


	6. Chapter 6

Most of the city's population was inside that building. Listening to the battle of the bands. It was packed, wall to wall, with headbanging, dancing, screaming instant fans of the singers.   
They didn't hear the riots outside.   
They didn't see the morphs, many of them almost fully pokemon, attacking the building.   
They didn't know the destruction they were capable of and fully intending on causing.   
Until an Earthquake ripped through the building.   
People collapsed in mid-dance. The band hit several wrong notes, and the music faded as light fittings crashed from the ceiling. Somewhere, some wires must've snapped, or something must've shorted, but the entire place lost power. The concert was plunged into darkness. With a deafening thump, the door flew inwards under the combined force of all four of a Machamp's fists. A small army could be seen outside.   
It was all chaos from there... 

~-~-~-~ 

  


The fighting had been fierce. The pokemon had been subdued, but everyone was on full alert.   
Blue and his friends had been a leading force in removing them. The three remaining birds had fought alongside them, united for a common cause - saving the battle of the bands.   
But they'd failed.   
The entire concert hall had been leveled. Everyone was helping search for survivors; Blue's psychic abilities were coming in handy to locate people and lift the heavier masonry.   
But something else caught his attention. The judges of the competition were making an announcement.   
"Due to these... unforseen circumstances..." Their spokesperson was saying, "We have decided to reschedule the Battle of the Bands competition. As several of the bands involved did not get a chance to play..."   
"WHAT?!" Blue screeched, and was suddenly in front of the judge, telekinetically holding him up and staring at him with glowing blue eyes. "Don't be a fool! You know as well as I do that this entire thing was a two-band show. None of them could have beaten us."   
"These bands did not get an opportunity to present their songs." The judge said, as calmly as he could while looking into those glowing blue slits. "It is unfair to conclude the competition without hearing all acts. And if you do not put me down this instant, I will have your band DISQUALIFIED FROM THE COMPETITION!"   
Blue snarled and dropped him. "Well, we've got a slight problem with that! Look at our keyboard player! In a week, he probably won't even be human enough to play!"   
Bubblejet looked extremely hurt by this comment. He hung his head, knowing that not only was his humanity hovering over a long drop into nothingness, but losing him would be a huge blow to the band. One that Blue would probably not react kindly to.   
"Nevertheless, all the equipment was destroyed in that crash. We can supply new equipment, but this will take time. As will booking a new venue. We will keep you all posted on the place and time. But it will be at least another week. I am sorry."   
Everyone was muttering and leaving. Blue started a few more protests, then sort of collapsed.   
"Come on guys... we'd better get practicing again."   
They all followed him dejectedly away. The three bird morphs stayed, looking at each other worriedly.   
"Shouldn't Gold and Zapper be back by now?"   
"Yeah..."   
As if they'd called her, Gold suddenly swooped down between them, looking rather breathless.   
"What's wrong?"   
"Zapper... she's gone..." 

~-~-~-~

BJ trotted along obediently behind Blue with the rest of his band, allowing himself to drop to all fours as they stopped. He'd been finding it more of a pain than being natural to stand up on his hind legs... no, legs. He'd started thinking of them as hind, too.   
His paws were getting much larger and heavier now. Not very much left in the way of fingers. "Cuuuuuuuune...." He found himself growling, but then stopped, horrifie, with a paw to his muzzle. Had he lost the ability to speak then too?   
"No." He said, with a rough voice that wasn't completely his own. He repeated the word. No, he could still talk. "I still don't trust them." He said, obviously still a little sore about being sealed up by Arctic.   
"I know what you mean." Eric said. "Look at them. They look like they're plotting something. And anyway, where's the other one?"   
"Hmm?"   
"There's only four of them, look."   
The entire band looked over at the girls. Gold was being yelled at by the other three, all four looked rather shocked. They weren't that far away, but their voices were drowned out by the mass of people yelling and digging, searching for survivors.   
"They're probably just telling her what happened." Blue suggested.   
"Shouldn't we be helping them dig?"   
"Uh..."   
"We should be practising." Said Josh.   
"What, practise is more important than saving people's lives?"   
Josh looked at him darkly, but he couldn't exactly say yes. "Alright. We'll stick around for a bit." Josh floated up and closed his eyes, psychically searching for signs of life.   
"Cool." The others moved out, searching for places to dig. 

~-~-~-~

In the shadows of a building, the same old shadowy figure hid, watching. The Endangered were spreading out... good...   
He needed to get one of them alone... and if they were looking for injured, trapped people, he could do that. Turning away, he went to get in position... 

~-~-~-~ 

"I don't believe this!" Maura raged. "How could she be just GONE?"   
"She couldn't have gone wild, like the others, could she?" Silver reasoned.   
"It's a possibility, but I would've noticed something." Gold said thoughtfully. "One moment she was there, next..." She shrugged.   
"Are you sure you felt _nothing? _You've no idea what could've caused it?"   
"No... wait, maybe there was something." She thought about it for a moment. "There was a sudden downdraft. Like something was moving down through the air really fast. But the wind wouldn't have been strong enough to push her out of sight, without making a sound."   
"Maybe she was diving?"   
"Who knows?"   
They were all silent for a moment, thinking of the various possibilities. None of them looked good.   
"Did you search the area?"   
"She wasn't in the air, I can tell you that. The only things I saw were couple of Pidgey morphs and a Scyther."   
"And the ground?"   
"I searched for a while, but I couldn't spot her. So I decided to come back and find you guys, but..." She waved a wing towards the rubble that surrounded the area."   
"Hey, you four!" Yelled a voice from nearby. They turned to see a Nidorino morph struggling with some rubble. A head could just be seen under it. "Mind giving us a hand?"   
They looked at each other. "We'll do some work here, then go and find Zelda, okay?" Silver stated.   
"Uh... okay."   
The four of them moved to help the Nidorino, though their Zapdos friend remained the main train of their thoughts... 

~-~-~-~ 

Josh hovered over the extensive destruction zone, searching for signs of life. His eyes closed, he didn't notice the fact that he was moving away from the others. But his meditative state was broken as a cry reached his ears.   
His eyes snapped open, and he searched for the source... and as it cried again, he locked onto it - an Arcanine morph, trapped under the rubble of a half-collapsed house. Josh swooped down to him.   
One arm was almost free, but stuck out in such a way that it couldn't dislodge anything - and by the way it was hanging, it looked dislocated. The head was mostly buried, but a small patch of red and white could be seen. Josh waved a hand, and the patch of rubble covering the guy's face flew aside.   
"Wow... thanks... I've been here... ages..." Panted the morph. Josh nodded and began clearing the rest of the bricks and building materials aside.   
_No... don't..._ Josh froze. Something had just called him. He looked into the pleading eyes of the morph, then shook the feeling off and kept digging.   
_Stop... must... leave..._ There had been no mistaking it that time. He looked around questioningly, and the morph moaned, using his arm to weakly clear a little more of the rubble away. Finding nobody, Blue joined him.   
_You fool! Behind you!_ The thought came as strongly as a shout, although it sounded like it was from a great distance away. Blue spun just in time to see the attack flying towards him...   
With a resounding explosion, the attack hit... Blue's barrier. Flames, dust and smoke flew everywhere. Though behind his shield Josh remained unaffected and unharmed, he couldn't see anything past it. He waved his hand-paws, and the choking dust cleared... there was no sign of an attacker. Any houses near him had been leveled, and he realised he was hovering over a small crater.   
Looking behind, he found the Arcanine morph... gone. He looked more carefully around the area, but there was no sign of it.   
_It couldn't have been completely vaporized... could it? _He shuddered to think... that attack had been meant for him...   
Who had warned him? Someone had screamed out a psychic warning, and it'd probably saved his life... But who? There was no-one else in the area...   
And who would've attacked him?   
He slowly sank lower into the crater, as many others crowded around, having seen the huge explosion. His face was a mask of confusion, concern and worry...   
But suddenly confusion, concern and worry were struck from his mind as pain wracked him. His first thought was that he was being attacked again, and his second was that whatever was happening, it was far too painful to think about.   
The four other Endangereds managed to push through the crowd, just about the time Josh instinctively unleashed a psychic attack. The crowd scattered in fear as a group of them were mowed down by the attack, though not too badly damaged. They immediately assumed that he had caused the explosion, gone mad, and would now kill them all...   
The birds winged in, wondering what was going on. Josh was curled up in a ball, shaking and screaming wildly, as psychic energy radiated off him in destructive bursts. His tail was writhing back and forth wildly... then suddenly, with a sickening organic noise it streched to about twice it's normal length...   
The eight of them watching realised what was happening about that time - he was changing, becoming more pokemon. They couldn't see much of the rest of his body, but they guessed it was altering too.   
Suddenly, without warning, he stopped screaming. The tangible, dangerous psychic aura in the air faded away. Blue, however, remained curled into a ball, glowing slightly, whimpering with pain. BJ was the first one to be game enough to check.   
"Blue... you okay?" He nudged his friend's arm with his muzzle, trying to get him to reveal his face. However, it didn't work quite how he expected - Blue screamed again and lashed out psychically, throwing Sammy back. He managed to stay stable on four legs, not fall over, but looked like he was in pain...   
Blue's screaming fit only lasted about five seconds this time, before it stopped abruptly and he collapsed, uncurling slightly, unconscious.   
BJ was shaken as he looked at the leader of his band. He felt something was expected of him, and suddenly came to a decision.   
"I'm going for help!" He cried, crawling up the side of the crater.   
"Sa-" Eric called after him, but the Suikun cut him off.   
"I'm the fastest! Don't worry, just stay here!" Then he disappeared over the lip of the crater. The remaining seven looked at where he'd been, then Maura spread her wings.   
"What help do you think you're gonna get, Sammy?" She cried, then lifted off and moved to search for the water dog. The others just looked at each other. Suddenly they remembered they were supposed to be enemies, and gathered into their respective groups to scowl at the others... 

~-~-~-~ 

Bubblejet had scarcely left the crater when he'd been hit in the side. He sprawled and slid away, into a wall.   
_Ouch..._ He grimaced. What was that? It had been big... Trying to regain his footing, he looked up as a shadow fell across him.   
Pure shock registered across his face. "You? Why are you..."   
Any further comments he may've made were cut off as an attack tore into him. He had a slight feeling of deja vu, as it hit him so hard that he couldn't even scream, only gasp impotently...   
And even as the blast finished, as he blacked out, he thought...   
_Why on earth... it can't be her... she would never..._   
After that, he knew no more.   
Laughing, the shadowy figure tugged the unconscious form of the Suikun into one of the houses. A couple of seconds later, a head popped out, but quickly pulled back as Maura's fiery form soared overhead...   
She was next. And there was a perfect bait... 


	7. 

Maura stared into the sun, still searching for any sign of Bubblejet. She'd been looking for ages, but hadn't seen hide nor hair of the Suikun morph. Light flashed off something in the distance. Hmmm... What could that be?   
As she flew closer, she recognised the shape. No... it couldn't be... She rubbed her eyes, not believing what she saw...   
Zelda!   
She was flying determinedly, but neither towards or away from the city. Maura charged full-speed at her friend, trying to catch up, not thinking of anything but reuniting with the missing morph, not realising she was leaving the city behind...   
"ZELDAAAAA!" She shreiked happily, as she closed in on her friend. The electric bird stopped her flight and hovered in midair, looking for the source of the call.   
As she spotted the flaming ball that was Maura travelling straight towards her, her expression changed to something approaching sadness, and she dropped her head, looking at the ground.   
"Zelda!" Maura called again as she pulled herself to a stop in front of her friend. "Where have you been? We've been so worried... we thought something had happened to you and..."   
Maura trailed off as she realised the Zapdos morph wasn't talking back. She just stared down at the ground.   
"What's wrong?" Maura extended one arm out to lift Zelda's head, to look in her eyes...   
Suddenly the electric bird's head snapped up, and twisted into as much of a malicious grin as the beak would allow as both hands flew up to clap around Maura's. FireBird could not do anything as she saw electricity build in her best friend's feathers.   
She made an attempt to escape as the full-scale thunder attack was released, but her 'friend' was holding her arm tight, too tight. She screamed in pain as electricity flashed, then slumped as it finally ended. Zelda held onto her for a second as she fell, then she felt the pressure on her arm disappear...   
Even as she took the plummeting fall to the ground, her conscioussness did the same. She never knew whether or not she hit the ground. 

~-~-~-~ 

The other legendaries waited. And waited. And waited.   
Maura and Sammy didn't come back.   
Finally, Artic stood up. She counted the remaining legendaries. Seven, including herself. Although she wasn't sure about Blue anymore, lying unconscious...   
Earlier on, she would have suggested that they all went together. But they couldn't just leave Blue here- they couldn't!   
Suddenly, she had an idea. "Silver!"   
Her friend turned to her. "Yes?"   
"Lugia is half-psychic, right? Can't you find out where they are?"   
Silver hesitated. "I don't... know." Then she closed her eyes...   
The others anxiously waited as Laura sat there, perfectly still. It seemed like an eternity before her eyes opened. Her face showed worry.   
"I can't find any of them!" She explained. "I can't sense Maura or Zelda, or Sammy."   
"Where could they be? I mean..."   
"They couldn't all have gone... wild..."   
"Could they?"   
"Would you be able to sense them if they were..."   
"I don't know..."   
They ran into a heated conversation, which turned into an argument as the boys joined in. Then, as one, they all stopped.   
Josh was waking up.   
He stretched and opened his eyes, looking at the worried morphs in front of him, unsure of what was going on. He opened his mouth to ask them...   
Nothing came out.   
Suprised, he tried again - still nothing. Not a gasp. Turning to the side, he spotted a sheet of metal in the ground... a reflective surface...   
Hovering over to it, he examined his image... and realised what had happened. He was a full Mewtwo. And Mewtwo couldn't speak.   
Or sing... 

~-~-~-~ 

The remainder of the small army that had stormed the stadium was limping off, away from the city. Defeated and disgraced, they were thinking of revenge...   
And they found it when they met up with the local wild pokemon around the city.   
The pokemon were too easy to convince to join their little rebellion. The ex-morphs trained them, built them up, organized them...   
Once this army was complete, not even the legendaries would stand in their way... 

~-~-~-~ 

Blue's face was a mask of calmness, but that in no way reflected how he felt within. He hadn't learnt to control telepathy yet. He didn't know how to use it. But he had no voice now, and he needed _some_ way to communicate with the others... but how?   
His mind pulled up an idea - some years ago, he'd learnt some sign language, when his grandfather had lost his hearing. He was no expert... but it was better than nothing.   
That was, assuming that one of the others knew sign language too...   
He started making guestures, asking "Do any of you understand this?"   
Most of them just looked at him questioningly, but Holly nodded. He sighed with relief, and signed his predicament.   
"Hmm... that's a problem." She said. The others looked at her, and she passed on his message.   
"Look, Blue... we don't know where Maura, Zelda or Sammy have gotten to. Can you try to sense them?"   
He nodded, looking rather confused, and searched... and after a couple of seconds, he turned to one side of the crater.   
"Is it them?" Laura asked excitedly. Josh didn't move, just kept watching. In a moment, a head appeared over the side of the crater.   
"Oh, thank god, you're here." It was a Jolteon morph, who was looking both worried and relieved. "You're not going to believe this!"   
"What is it?"   
He slid down the side of the crater to stand in front of them. "I was just digging around in the rubble, see if I could find anything or anyone, and I did."   
"Did you find one of us?"   
"Huh?"   
"Three of us have gone missing." Explained Chadran. "We can't find them, not even psychically."   
The Jolteon's eyes widened. "Then it's worse than I thought. Have a look at this!"   
He held out one yellow paw. In it lay a tiny sphere, the size of a large marble, but one any person would recognize on sight.   
It was a pokeball.   
They gazed in wonderment and disbelief at it. Half of it was a deep brown-red muddy colour, the other a brilliant yellow.   
"What sort of pokeball is that?" Asked Thunder after a moment. "I've never seen one in those colours before."   
"We think whoever had this dropped it, by accident. They may've been intending to use one like it on you."   
"A ball that captures morphs?" Thunder asked as they all looked at the Jolteon increduously. "You can't do it. They've tried, the balls just don't wo...rk..."   
He trailed off as the guy enlarged the ball and tossed it to the ground. It cracked open, and the red light materialised...   
And a tall Pidgeot morph stood there regally, wing-arms by his sides as he stared blankly straight ahead, not taking in anything around him. The legendaries just stared.   
"We haven't managed to get a peep out of this guy. He won't speak, won't move, won't even defend himself if attacked. Just stands there like a statue."   
"Oh..." Silver stood on her toes to stare the morph in the eyes. "How could anyone do this?"   
"We think the balls are more powerful than the normal sort. He's completely under his 'master''s control." He answered sadly.   
Blue stepped up, and cupped his hands around the Pidgeot's head. There was a faint blue glow, which quickly vanished... and Blue shook his head.   
Silver tried too. "Can't pick up a thought... he's got some sort of block on him. Or..."   
Everyone looked at each other. They were all thinking the same thing, but nobody wanted to say it. _What if they couldn't pick up a thought... because there were no thoughts? What if he was nothing but a mindless zombie?_   
"Now listen to me." The Jolteon said firmly. "Three of your friends have disappeared. You can't pick them up psychically - just like this guy here. We can only assume the worst. If these three have been captured by these balls... then they're going to be controlled by whoever has captured them. Remember that. They might not be themselves."   
"You don't know that..."   
"But we can only assume that." He returned the Pidgeot to the ball. "I'll get some friends together, see if we can find out anything from the Pidgeot... Here's my number." He handed them a card. "You lot be careful. The last thing we need is someone running around controlling people's minds..."   
And as he climbed the side of the crater, he added, "Especially people as powerful as you!" 

~-~-~-~ 

The same old shadowy figure was... actually sitting back and relaxing. Having obtained three of his ten targets, he was content to let the others stew in their fear for a while. It was still a couple of hours before dawn, and he'd managed to obtain a newspaper and was unfolding it to read...   
He froze as he read the headline: POKEBALL PERIL - TERRORIST BODYSTEALER ON THE LOOSE! And below that was a picture of the pokeball and the Pidgeot anthro he'd caught about a week ago.   
_The pokeball he'd dropped during the concert!_   
Scanning rapidly through the article, he cursed. He had to get the pokeball back... before they could break the Pidgeot free of his compulsion. This would set his plan back somewhat.   
Storming out of his house, he was soon gone into the night... 

~-~-~-~ 

The remaining legendaries, now more scared and paranoid than ever, had decided to make sure that they ALWAYS stayed in pairs, or more. Artic and Holly stayed in one house together. Laura was staying with Blue, as she was the only one who could actually understand him. The other three boys were all staying together in the same house too.   
Aria slowly woke up to Holly's continued efforts. "Artic, wake up..."   
"Hnn?"   
"It's nearly morning" She said, and yawned - she'd been up all night keeping guard in case whoever it was attacked in the dark. "I'm gonna have a shower... You shouldn't be asleep by yourself..."   
Aria groaned and slowly rose. Holly watched for a moment and then left for the bathroom.   
Artic, bleary-eyed, moved to the window to take a breath of fresh air. She was quite surprised, in her still half-asleep state, when talons closed around her shoulders and pulled her out. She woke up pretty quickly after that.   
She managed to drag herself free of the talons, leaving a few bloody marks on her ice-blue/white feathers. She spun around, and looked up to see Firebird attacking her.   
"Maura!" She cried, then had the prescence of mind to dodge the flamethrower the firebird aimed at her.   
"No... it's true, he got you..." She said despairingly, dodging another attack. "Maura! Fight it! I'm your friend! Don't attack me!"   
Maura's next attack seemed a little hesitant, and was way off mark. "Yes! Don't listen! Don't obey him! You can do it, Maura!"   
The next flamethrower died in her throat. Artic was elated to see the look of battle fade from her friend's face and be replaced by one of despair...   
"Please... Aria... help me..."   
"You've got it! Just concentrate!"   
She watched as an inner battle went on inside Maura. She screamed, then collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.   
"I think... I've got it now..."   
"I told you you could do it..." Aria moved to the Moltres morph, to help her up.   
She experienced mild discomfort as her ice-based body came in contact with Maura's flaming feathers, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. She looked at the bird, then hugged her.   
"Oh, Maura, I'm so glad you're okay!"   
"Well... Personally, I'm so glad you're such a gullible fool."   
This took a couple of seconds to sink in, by which time the flaming feathers had already expanded into an unbearable blaze. Artic cried out in pain, and almost through instinct unleashed a Blizzard attack... 

Holly rushed out, dressed again. The first thing she saw was Artic, lying on the floor, badly burnt and scarred. The second was the alternatively burnt and frozen walls and ground outside.   
"Artic! Are you okay?!"   
"Maura..." She croaked. "She came... attacked... tricked me..."   
"Oh no..." Holly moaned. "So it is true?"   
"She wasn't herself... I thought she'd broken it, but she was just pretending... I only just managed to attack... before she..."   
"Did you manage to see who the thief was?"   
Artic just coughed up smoke. Holly moved forward, to comfort her friend.   
Something was wrong.   
She paused in mid-step. How did she get back up here? And wouldn't the attacker try to use one of the others he'd captured, or attack personally? Artic couldn't...   
She realised the truth, and began backing away from her friend. "No... not you too..."   
"What? What do you..."   
"Don't try to fool me... He caught you too."   
Artic closed her eyes. Holly, torn between her friend's safety and her own, decided there was nothing she could do here, and ran for it. 

She got outside and ran onto the road, but her efforts were somewhat hampered by the way the road in front of her suddenly exploded in a mass of smoke and ashphalt chips, knocking her to the ground, stinging from several cuts. When it cleared, she felt a prescence behind her, and spun around.   
"Hmm... very clever. I didn't think you'd pick up on it... not that it's done you much good."   
She looked up. It was a Charizard anthro, very tall and extremely confident looking, wings curled around in a threatening, smothering manner. He smirked.   
"I suggest you make it easy, and just let me capture you." He held up a ball. She snarled and spat a small bolt of flame at him. He shot his own fireball at it, and the two attacks collided and fizzled out.   
"Hmph... okay then... Let's see if I can take you now." He threw the ball towards her, hard. She cried out and lashed out at it with one wing, and a nasty crack sounded... but it flew back into his hand without her.   
"Hmm... well then." He stalked up to her - approaching faster than she had expected, suddenly just in front of her - and kicked her, hard, in the stomach. She was thrown back across the broken road, getting even more scratches, and completely winded. She coughed up a little blood, but could do nothing but sob with pain.   
"How about now?" He grinned, and held up the ball, prepared to throw again. She realised she was helpless... She'd be captured, this time...   
Staring up at the Charmorph's face, she realised she could do one more thing...   
Gathering up all her psychic energy, she took a mental picture of the scene in front of her, the Charizard throwing the pokeball, and broadcast it across the psychic wavelength to anyone within range - probably most of the town. The morph faltered as the image hit him too, and the ball missed. He snarled, realising what she'd done.   
"Damn you!" He growled, and kicked her again, even harder. She was thrown into the air, landed hard and skidded across the road. The pain was incredible. She knew there was no hope for her now.   
But there was for the others... she thought, as she felt the ball hit her back, and her body transmute to energy...   
But her thoughts were stricken as she heard the Charizard's voice whisper into her ball. "You may have ruined my element of suprise... but I've got five of you now. Along with five other pokemon and myself. I'll still get the others, never you mind..."   
  



	8. Chapter 8

Time dragged on inside the ball for Gold.   
And on.   
And on.   
And on.   
There was no way to tell how much time had passed, no watches, no clocks, nothing but darkness. She tried to struggle, but found it impossible, lacking a physical form.   
_No... I can't move... I can't escape..._   
She panicked - a lot of good it did her. After a while of mindless screaming and ranting, trying to attack something, anything, but completely unable to... she managed to calm down. She burnt herself out.   
After that she resolved to plotting.   
It was really the only thing she could do. Countless scenes spun through her head. Of what she'd like to do to that Charizard. Attacking him. Blasting him. Not stopping until there wasn't a single scrap of evidence that he'd ever existed on this earth.   
Thoughts like this began to build her confidence. The moment she was let out of this ball, she'd get him. Flatten him. She was far more powerful than he would ever be...   
But time dragged on. She could still vaguely hear what was going on outside the ball; nothing particularly interesting. She'd begun to doze off when the time she'd been waiting for arrived.   
Light broke into her consciousness as she felt her body resume its shape. She almost collapsed as she suddenly had to support herself again, after floating formless for so long...   
As the blinding light faded, she saw a large but blurry red and blue figure ahead of her, standing not two feet from her. _The Charizard!_ She snarled, and lashed out with a wing.   
It was a perfect blow, it would've knocked the morph in the jaw, taking him out easily. If he hadn't spoken up.   
"STOP... right there." He said firmly. Her vision cleared further. Her mind cried out in shock.   
Her wing hung, inches from his head. She was frozen in mid-motion. She willed her wing further, to hit him. It didn't move an inch.   
"Faster reactions than I expected." He said approvingly. "Go over there and stand by the wall."   
_NO! Why would I..._ Her mental complaint petered out as she lowered her wing and walked over to the wall. _Oh god..._   
She turned to face him, and he tossed another ball. The red light revealed Aria's form, though fully healed, without the terrible burns she'd had when Laura had last seen her. Laura was forced to watch as her friend walked over to stand next to her.   
Three more balls were tossed, and Maura, Zelda and Sammy walked over to stand next to them.   
Holly couldn't believe it. Total control. She couldn't move a muscle. Couldn't twitch a feather. She just stood there calmly while the Charizard, towering over her and the rest of them, wandered along the line, smirking at them one by one.   
"Five." He said simply. "Five out of ten."   
He paused, his lizardine face nearly touching hers. One quick movement, and she could've ripped half his snout off with her beak. Move ten centimetres. Even that was beyond her.   
"And a psychic, too... a whole new set of possibilities."   
A slave. Completely and utterly. Every physical movement controlled by the word of this freak. She ran through her mind the scene Aria had so briefly explained to her - Maura had attacked her, tricked her. Would she be forced to do that? Attack her friends? Trick her friends into joining this madman's cause?   
_Oh, you bet you will._   
She would've jumped, as the voice sounded in her head, if she had been able to move. The Charizard gave a snorting laugh, and moved on.   
In her head too!   
"Well, there'll be some training going on here, I can tell you that." He grinned. "But I guess that can wait. I'm hungry. So you can just stand there like good little pokemon and wait."   
He stalked out of their sight. Holly tried to turn, to see the door he was leaving by, but the muscles in both eye and neck refused to respond.   
_Oh man, that's half of us..._ She heard a voice say, a very familiar one.   
_Aria?_   
_ Holly? Can you hear me?_   
_ Yeah, loud and clear._   
_ So can I._   
_ Me too!_   
_ Uh... I can hear you too._ Sammy finished up.   
_Well, this is an unexpected bonus._ Holly tried to look at her friends, but her eyes stubbornly remained focused straight ahead.   
_You can use your psychic powers still?_ Maura suggested.   
_Uh... Let's see..._ She concentrated on telekinetically moving a small piece of wood in her sight. It didn't budge.   
_Oh well, at least we can talk to each other._   
_ Maura, I'm so sorry..._ Zelda burst out.   
_I understand._ Maura replied sadly. _He made me attack Aria. Sorry about that, girl._   
Artic was silent. Gold got a feeling of growing guilt from Firebird, and was about to say something when Aria jumped in.   
_Do you think we can contact the others?_   
Nobody got a chance to answer, as the Charizard chose that moment to walk back in. As they watched, he closed his rather large jaws over an extremely thick piece of meat in a sandwich.   
"Hmm..." He swallowed. "Training begins now, I think. This area should be strong enough to take it."   
_What sort of training would he have in mind?_ Wondered Holly. He laughed.   
"Easy. One on one battles. Maura against me. Zelda against... hmm, she's powerful against all of you. Zelda against Holly. Aria and Sammy."   
Holly started. _He knows our names?_   
_ You bet I do. I'm in your mind, psychic. I know everything you know._   
Despair sunk in as she watched herself move up to a corner of the room to face the Zapdos morph. She heard the voice behind her.   
"All out battle. Begin!"   
Maura was in the best position, able to take out her rage on the evil creature that enslaved them. But even as she did, a plan formed in her mind. She knew the Charizard would stop her before she did any lasting damage.   
Contacting the others.   
She let out a scream, psychically, towards the others, still free... Hoping against hope that the mental call would reach them. _If you can hear me, this is what you have to do... One of you go out in the open, present a target. The rest hide. Lure him out. Attack anything that comes near them._   
She paused for a second, then continued. _Even me._

~-~-~-~ 

Two days.   
Two days since the battle of the bands.   
Two days since they'd first discovered pokeballs could be used on morphs.   
Two days since they'd met the Charizard anthro that controlled their every move.   
Two days of mental, physical and emotional torture.   
Two days.   
_Two days!_   
That phrase repeated itself over and over in the minds of the various capturees. For two days they'd been forced to attack each other, beat their own best friends senseless, to grow stronger, to beat their other friends senseless, to add to their 'master''s stock.   
He would work them until they fainted, and then return them to their pokeballs... and when they came out again they were ready to begin again. They'd only got one break so far, when he'd gone to have a sleep, and he'd let them stay out. They'd used that time to talk.   
But now they were all battling fiercely again, this time in a five-way free-for-all. The Charizard had specified that no attacks were to be thrown his way, and if by chance one did, anyone close enough was to block it or warn him. They'd done this several times, and were very annoyed.   
He wasn't even looking at them, but staring out the window. So easy. With these five he could probably take over anywhere he wanted, so long as the others couldn't interfere... but the lure of having all ten was too great.   
Something caught his attention. Something was glittering brightly in the afternoon sun, and he had a very good feeling he knew what it was.   
"You lot! Stop the fighting and come over here." He called. They all did so, disentangling themselves from their battle to walk over to him.   
"You have sharper eyesight than me. Who or what is that up there?"   
Maura answered him. "That's Silver."   
"Hmm... flying alone in the middle of the sky. That's a little dangerous, isn't it? Why would she be doing that?"   
"I told her to." Maura said flatly. "I suggested they use her as a target so they could attack you when you came out to capture her."   
"Is that so..." He mused, knowing full well the despair that being forced to voice their plan would've caused to the Firebird. "Well, I think I could come up with a way to counter that..."   
He thought about plans. _It probably would've worked, too..._ he mused. _Wait a minute... how did she tell them to do that? ...Oh well. I'll find out after I do some... recruiting..._

~-~-~-~ 

Silver screeched as she saw a red dot getting larger, coming up to meet her. She was disappointed when she saw it was not the Charizard, as they'd hoped, but Maura.   
Firebird zoomed up, screaming a birdlike battlecry, but Laura gracefully avoided it. She started a powerful Hydro Pump... but it died in her throat as she looked at her friend's face. No... she couldn't attack Maura, however changed she may be...   
Maura had no such scruples, and blew a flamethrower at the Lugia morph. She managed to dodge most of it, but it still singed one wing. She remembered the message she'd got, the previous night...   
"My plan is this - One of you go out in the open while the rest hide. attack anything that comes near the person who is out in the open... Even Me."   
Even me...   
Even me...   
"I'm sorry, Maura..." She whispered, as her possessed friend came in for another swoop. Just when it seemed the bird was about to hit, the attack was unleashed... 

~-~-~-~ 

The ground troops watched the aerial battle of the birds, hidden in various places below, ready to move in at any time. But they'd organized this earlier, and they knew that it was Maura, not the Charizard, she was fighting.   
They'd agreed that, should she spot him, she'd fire a Fire blast in his direction. She could handle Maura. They had to wait for the big guy to show himself...   
Draco looked on, from the window of an abandoned, half-destroyed house. He couldn't do much from here, although some of his attacks might reach, he would probably hit Silver too.   
He thought about that. Just a couple of days ago, the two groups had been at each other's throats... now they were co-operating against a common enemy... It was amazing how things had changed.   
He started when he felt a large hand close around the end of his tail, pulling him around and forcefully slamming him into a wall.   
He was slightly stunned, but his light, snakelike body meant that he hadn't taken too much damage. He looked around, to see their attacker - along with Gold, staring down at him.   
"It probably would've worked, if I didn't have a spy on the inside... and I didn't have Holly's psychic abilities to find out where you were." He said, grinning. Draco remembered that this plan had been Maura's idea...   
He snarled, and started charging a powerful Dragon Rage... even if it didn't stop this guy, it would slow him down... and the other guys would see it, for sure...   
He tried not to think about the implications of using such an immensely wide-scale attack in such a confined area, with him still in it...   
But he never got the chance. Before he could unleash the attack, a third figure walked in, Aria, Artic, Articuno... Draco gasped in shock and pain as she attacked, and his serpentine body was coated in ice, the one element that could possibly hurt a dragon...   
The tall, confident Charizard grinned at the look of pain on the face of the morph, and threw the pokeball, bringing his total up to six...   
Looking through the window, he saw the fierce battle between the two birds, not being able to make much of it though. He called the two birds.   
"You've got better sight than me... how are they going up there?"   
"Maura is losing. Silver is crying, but she's not holding back. Maura's going to drop any second now." Silver explained. He cursed, and held Maura's pokeball towards the two fighters.   
The beam flashed out... too late. Maura fell like a stone, her friend diving after her, catching her in mid flight. He cursed again. He'd lost one of them...   
But she was still under his control... and through Gold's psychic powers, he could still transmit his orders to her. He returned the two birds with him, and hightailed it out of there... 

~-~-~-~ 

It was the next day, although still early enough in the morning to be night, and Aria was quietly sneaking along the back alleys of the city. Even as she did, she screamed in her mind.   
Captured... Captured... CAPTURED!   
She'd hurt Draco. Tried to trick Gold, with the intention of getting her captured...   
_No. Not her. The Charizard._   
Her mind flared as she beat imaginary wings in fury. Again and again, imaged played, over and over in her head. Her destroying him. Killing him. Finally being rid of him.   
She had never taken a life.   
The images disgusted her.   
And yet, at the same time, they appealed to her. She wanted to kill this person. This _monster._   
_AAARRRGGGHHH!!_ She screamed in her mind, frustrated beyond belief. This wasn't fair! This was impossible!   
She was closing in on her destination, ordered to attack Silver by the nightmare that held her captive. The house was in sight. She flew up, feeling her face twist into a malicious grin, feeling the beginnings of an Icebeam form in her throat.   
She spotted her target in the window. So easy. _Damn you, Silver, why did you have to make it so easy?_   
Even as the icy energy was released, she let out a desperate plea to her friend. _DUCK!_   
Silver flattened herself as the attack shattered the window and froze the wall behind her. Artic let out a silent mental cry of victory, but her body wasn't done with its attack just yet.   
The target saw the second Icebeam coming, and dodged it easily. _Get out of the house, you're a sitting duck! _Aria advised, hoping it was getting through.   
Whether it was or not, she got the idea and dove through a window facing away from Aria. The Articuno screeched and flapped up, higher and higher, to try to get a view of its prey.   
Artic felt her wings begin to beat faster, but she wasn't actually going anywhere. She soon realized what she was being forced to do.   
_Get up, Laura, it's a Blizzard! Get above me!_   
The blue-white streak shot up, just before the icy energy hit. Artic mentally punched the air in victory and yelled further advice to her friend.   
_Now! Your most powerful attack... Take me out..._   
Silver's eyes widened at this plea, but she soon saw the sense in it. She began to charge it...   
And cried out in pain as something drew a set of bloody lines across her back.   
She craned her head up to see Maura, staring back down at her, blood and feathers sticking to the talons. But if Maura was attacking her, then...   
She looked down to see the Charizard, grinning right back. He nodded his head to the side, where Chadran, Zelda and Sammy were battling Richie and Eric, who had been guarding the Moltres morph. Five on three. And Josh wasn't here.   
They were in trouble. 

~-~-~-~ 

Maura gasped in horror as her Flamethrower hit home on her friend.   
It was her.   
Her fault.   
She'd betrayed her friends.   
It had been her plan. She should've known her 'master' would've found out.   
_Her fault. Her fault._   
Her body shrieked, and lashed out with both wings. Gold faltered.   
_No... please... not again._   
Yes, that's it... attack her. Don't stop now. Finish her.   
_ No... I don't think I will._   
Attack! She can't take much more. Finish it! Now!   
_No... why would I want to do that? She's my friend!_   
Attack her! NOW! DO IT!   
_ NO! I'm NOT going to! Let... me... GO!_   
Something snapped.   
She could move. She could control herself. It almost came as a shock.   
But it only took her about five seconds to get used to controlling her own body again, before rage consumed her. It burned inside her like her feathers burned on the outside. Her body flared with fire. Silver looked scared for a moment, before Maura swung around and dived.   
_I'm stronger than that big bully. Why on earth should I obey him?_   
He was right in her sight as he watched Sammy, Zelda and Chadran fight, his back turned to her. She concentrated on him. She was focused on him. He was the only thing that existed right now.   
And if she had her way, he wouldn't be existing for long.   



	9. Chapter 9

Artic was halfway through charging an Icebeam to use on Laura when she felt it.   
The bonds that controlled her body weakened, just for a second. She turned her head towards her 'master' in confusion.   
He was being attacked! Dodging flamethrower after flamethrower, he was ducking around wildly... Who was attacking him? Eric?   
_Maura!_   
How could that be? Maura was under his control, just like she was. She still had the memories of the horrible burns, branded on her mind, to prove that.   
And yet, there was no doubt what she was seeing. That was a Moltres, sending a ceaseless barrage of Flamethrowers from her beak. And that was a very shocked-looking Charizard, dodging, leaping, shooting side to side...   
...And getting hit full in the face with a Fire Blast   
In the shock and pain, the instructions Aria recieved were garbled and panicked. She lost control of her body, but it seemed he didn't have much power over it either... the Ice Beam in the back of her throat was released. She'd been too busy staring at this incredible event to remember it.   
By pure chance, it hit the Charizard morph full-on.   
At first the shock coursed through her body from the connection... then she felt it. Freedom. She could control herself again.   
But then the power coursed back at her. No. Defend, don't attack the Charizard. Charizard friend. Attack winged girl.   
_ Nuh-uh. Maura's the good one. Charizard bad. And he's gonna die._   
The voices in her head melted like butter under a Fire Blast. She was in control now. Goodbye, Charizard, 'Master'.   
Artic was quickly beside Maura in a ceaseless rage, attacking the being in front of her with everything she had. Ice Beam after Ice Beam flew from her beak, biting cold wind and shards of ice poured from her wings as she flapped them furiously.   
_I'm stronger than some stupid Charizard! DIE!_ Her lungs, her eyes, her throat, her heart, every part of her body burned from the effort. But she didn't care. Nothing mattered except the Charizard. All she wanted was to hurt that morph as much as possible, even if it killed her.   
However, neither her ice or Maura's fire was doing much damage to the fire-based Charizard. He'd begun to get over the shock. The power holding her under his control was beginning to return. He was beginning to fight back. A fireball slammed her backwards. But she wasn't nearly finished yet.   
She was soon finding it harder and harder to control herself. Every attack took a little more effort than the last. She found herself desperately resisting the urge to turn on Maura, next to her.   
This wasn't going to work, she realised. It was fun while it lasted, but...   
A deep scream sounded, and the control slipped again. Sammy stood there on all fours, the last vestiges of a Hydro Pump dripping from his jaws.   
Zelda and Holly flew in nearby, forming a circle about the Charizard, who was still recovering from the deadly water attack.   
This was going to get ugly. 

~-~-~-~ 

Dodging furiously, the Charizard was in trouble. The Moltres was the first one to have broken free of his powers. The others followed, one by one... until they'd all broken free of control... joined forces with the other four... And now he had nothing but the lesser pokemon that he'd captured to protect him. They were being worn down easily. He couldn't win.   
He felt the despair, the hopelessness, knowing he couldn't possibly win this one... It was eating away at his core... 

His eyes snapped open. A dream... a nightmare... his heart was racing, adreniline pumping...   
He looked around. The Houou morph, Holly, she was watching him. Staring at him. He remembered those eyes from the dream... accusing, evil...   
"It was you, wasn't it?" He glared at her. "You're manipulating my mind."   
She physically didn't change, simply nodded... But even from here he could feel the psychic waves of smugness.   
"Now you know what it feels like..." She whispered. "To know hopelessness..."   
Damian sighed, knowing that it had all been a dream. He hadn't sent them out to attack yet, since Maura had been captured. But he was still shaken. She shouldn't have that sort of power, not while under his control. But he pushed it down, and glared at her.   
"Well... I think this next row will make you think twice about trying that again. This is what you're going to do..." 

_Sometime later_

In some hidden location somewhere, the Charizard sat, apparently asleep, but just thinking about what had happened... and what was certain to happen soon. The five legendaries were laying around near him - he was in a good mood, for some reason, and was letting them have a break from their training.   
Holly, sitting next to him in a very similar position, suddenly looked up. "She's awake."   
"Really? Well... I guess you know what to do then..."   
She nodded, and closed her eyes again, concentrating. He allowed her to enter his mind, and felt his mind connect with hers... and then spinning out through the etheral plane, searching out a single mind... 

~-~-~-~ 

Maura slowly regained consciousness. The first thing she was aware of was a group of four standing in front of her, and she somehow instinctively knew they were the enemy. She unleashed a flamethrower in their direction...   
When the flames cleared, they were standing there unharmed, and a blue-tinted barrier faded back into invisiblity. Her eyes cleared a little, and she realised she'd just attacked her friends.   
Then she saw the stern looks they were giving her, and the memories tumbled back. She tried to move her body, and couldn't... but then her body made a move without her, and it still couldn't move.   
She felt the desperation coming back as her head was forced to move left, right, and saw the cuffs that chained her wing-arms to the wall. Trying to move her legs, she found they were cuffed too.   
"Don't bother. They're practically unbreakable. And completely fireproof too."   
Maura felt her face curl into a sneer. "You'll never hold me. I'll get free."   
"We'll see about that."   
"You can't protect her. There's only four of you, and I've got six including Maura."   
"What?" The others were quite confused to hear their friend talk about herself in third person, possessed or not.   
"Oh, I guess I should explain." Her face curled into an evil grin. "This is Damian here, the one who's been capturing your friends. I'm talking through this little girl, thanks to the psychic powers of your Houou friend. (If shown in video, this would have an image of Damian's face superimposed on Maura's for a few seconds, saying the same words at the same time.)   
"Just let her go. And the others."   
"Let them go?" She laughed cruelly, which was a very strange sound coming from the gentle Moltres morph. "I think not."   
"What do you want from us?"   
"Exactly that. You. Once I get all ten of you, the ten most powerful pokemon in the history of the world... who will be able to stop me?" She laughed again. "Of course... you could make it easy and surrender... but I'm fairly sure you won't do that."   
"Damn right we won't. We'll take you down."   
"Really? And what about your friends? Will you 'take them down' too?"   
There was a silence. "Thought not. It's amazing, this technology. Every command, they follow to the letter. All that's left of them is their minds, crying and sobbing for freedom. Useless. It's impossible to break out of the pokeball's restraints..."   
"Let them go!" Shreiked Silver, unable to take it any more. Firebird's eyes glared into hers.   
"I'm not sure which is more satisfying... the power I have over them, to control them... or how they feel about it inside. I could have Maura attack you now, you realise. Your Mewtwo's shields can't last forever."   
Blue's eyes narrowed, as if to say "Neither can her flames."   
"Or, alternatively, I could make her kill herself." He continued through her. "How about that? I could tell her to put her own flames out... and her life would be snuffed along with them. A normal Moltres has instinctive barriers that would prevent such a thing occurring, and so does your friend... but they're no match for the power of the pokeball."   
"But you won't, will you?" Laura retorted. "You wouldn't lose one of your prizes."   
The flaming feathers of the Firebird suddenly dimmed, losing their fiery glow. All four of the remaining legendaries yelled in suprise.   
"Scared you, didn't I? Don't worry... she'll live. But it hurt her... I can feel her pain, hear her screams all the way back here." The fire began to slowly build up again.   
"Why can't you just leave us alone?"   
"What fun would that be? Anyway... right now I am leaving you alone."   
"But you're not leaving Maura alone. Or Holly, or Artic, or BJ, or Draco, or Zelda!" Silver was almost crying now.   
"Oh, I could be doing much worse." Maura's grin twisted into something even eviller, which did not suit her face. "Holly, here... she's sitting right next to me. Transmitting my mind to Maura. She's pretty cute, isn't she?"   
"You leave her alone!"   
"Or Aria, the Articuno..." A short hum. "Such lovely, soft feathers..."   
"Don't touch her!"   
"Zelda... she's a little spiky for me, but..."   
"Stop it! Stop it!" Gold had now completely broken into tears.   
"Stop it? Why, I'm only getting started. No, I think I'll leave the Zapdos alone for now. Back to Artic... How about a kiss?" There was silence for a moment, then another grin, this time looking curious, interested. "She's not bad... if a little cold..." He laughed at his own joke.   
"Please... stop it..."   
"Okay... maybe Holly again... Hmm, she seems a little disgusted by me stroking her hair..."   
"Why wouldn't she be, you freak?!"   
"My, my... Yes, she's got quite a bit of hatred for me in her thoughts. Amazing what you can pick up with these psychic links. Would you like to know what she's thinking?"   
He didn't wait for a reply. Suddenly Maura's body slumped in its chains, and the confident controlled voice of Damian melted away into almost incoherent, fevered mumblings.   
"OhgodletmegoleavemyfriendsalonegetmeoutofherestopthisletmegoyoubastardletmeoutofthisnightmareNOyoufreakI'mnotgonnakissyou... ohgodIcan'tstop... bleahdisgusting... fuckingbastard... ohgod... letmeout... makeitstop..." It fell into crying and sobbing, punctuated by the occasional plea or insult.   
"STOP IT!" Silver screeched, in much the same state. "Please... no more... please stop it."   
Maura's head snapped up again. "You don't like that? Your other friends are thinking something along the same lines. Although with your Moltres friend it's almost all cursing. I've never seen anyone with so much hatred in their hearts. Would you like me to..."   
Josh made a cutting motion with one hand, and shook his head sternly. Maura laughed again.   
"She'll break eventually. Accept your fate. It'd be a lot easier, in the long run. There's no real mental torture, once you accept it..."   
"I'd prefer to be tortured every day for the rest of my life than work with you."   
"No... that's not what I meant. I mean accept that there's no escape. That you really will do whatever I say. I've been working on some rather interesting ways to do that to your friends. I think... probably killing one of your friends slowly would probably do the trick. Let's see... What's the Suikun's name again? Bubblejet, isn't it? BJ? Hey, BJ! Got any... interests in any of the girls?"   
There was a pause. "Hmmm... he says he's got a fairly big crush on Artic. And she feels... the same way, whaddya know! So... how about I have them battle to the death?"   
"You wouldn't dare." Eric snarled.   
"I think BJ's fangs could do a fair bit of damage... Pretty strong stuff... Hey, there's an idea. I could have him eat her alive! Hmm... and her beak looks like it could cause some fairly nasty tears too..."   
"Please... stop it... we'll do anything..." Silver sobbed frantically.   
"Join me. Join your friends."   
"No! Then you'll just do the same things anyway! And with us too."   
"Hmm... well then. That does put you in a bit of a dilemma then, doesn't it? I'll tell you what... Your Moltres friend here... she won't eat anything. She won't try to escape, but she'll refuse to eat, drink, anything. If you hand yourselves over to me, then I'll let her go... but otherwise, you're condemning your friend to a long, slow, painful death. Have fun, and hopefully see you soon..." Maura winked, and then her head fell down, along with the rest of her body, as if unconscious.   
The four of them looked at each other. This couldn't be good... not at all... 

~-~-~-~ 

They were on their way home from the prison cell where Maura was being held when Silver looked at Blue, trying to clear tears from her eyes. "You should run away." She said, carefully.   
"What?!" He signed frantically, "And leave you guys by yourselves? No way!"   
"Listen... if Damian gets you, then we're all screwed. The rest of us can't beat you... but if you stay free, run away somewhere else, then someday you can come back with the element of suprise... Once you've worked out how to use those powers of yours properly. And you can free us all, if we're okay..."   
"But..."   
"No buts! Get going. Somewhere where nobody would ever suspect. Don't tell us, or he'll know. Please... go. Now..."   
Blue looked to the others for support... but they were nodding sadly, agreeing with her. Sighing, he moved his consciousness to the psychic plane and picked a location at random, far away from here...   
His form shimmered and faded... and vanished...   
The four became three... and they readied theirselves for the final battle... 


	10. Chapter 10

It wasn't much later that night, although a couple of time zones over, when a Raichu morph, wandering through the streets of San Francisco, California, had a very strange encounter.   
An empty beer bottle in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, she slipped into an alley to have a quick smoke. As she slid into the shadows, a huddled bundle of grey fur caught her eye. Mildly intoxicated, she tottered over to have a look at it.   
It was breathing, still, though slowly. It was hard to tell, in the poor light, but there seemed to be some sort of tail curled around, of a somewhat darker shade - purple, maybe. She prodded it gently.   
"Hey there, pal. What's up? Not a fun place to lie around."   
The ball didn't move much. A head raised slightly, and two large, dark purple eyes stared at her.   
"Don't be afraid. I won't hurt ya." She continued, a tad uncertainly. The object of her attention closed its eyes again and shook softly. She thought something was wrong, but realised that it might be laughing.   
Slowly, the morph uncurled itself and stood up. She gasped, stepped back and dropped her cigarette. He was slightly taller than he'd looked on the ground, and now that he wasn't curled up he looked distinctly threatening somehow. The thick tail swished slowly from side to side as she tried to place the silhouette to any pokemon, morphed or not, that she knew... and failed.   
"Who... what ARE you?" she stammered. She faintly heard the bottle that had been in her hand smash on the concrete.   
The morph made some kind of motion with three-fingered hands. For a moment she thought he was one of the mad ones, preparing some sort of attack... but then realised it was sign language, adapted to morphic hands. She knew rudimentary signing, however, it was too dark to interpret the guestures and the amount of alcohol in her system probably wasn't helping either.   
"Can't speak, eh? That's a bummer." She put out a paw. "My name's Cella. What's yours?"   
The strange creature looked around for a moment, then pointed at a faded poster on the wall - who knew what it was advertising, it was more rip and tear than anything. She looked at it carefully, then guessed.   
"Paper? Poster? Wall?" She shrugged as he shook his head and pointed harder at one spot. "Ripper? Fade? I don't know..."   
He seemed to sigh, collapse slightly, then looked her over carefully. Grabbing one arm, he pointed to the cuffs of the light jumper she wore. She looked at them carefully, then at the poster on the wall, tried to work out what was similar between them.   
"Blue?" She guessed wildly. He nodded, relaxed. "So you're called Blue. Okay... Blue it is then. You're not from around here, are you?"   
He shook his head sadly. Everything about him seemed to slump, eminating immense sadness, helplessness... She felt sorry for the guy.   
"Tell you what, Blue. Do you want to come to my place? I'll let you stay there for a while."   
He looked a little shocked at this generosity, but readily accepted. She shrugged and strode away... but didn't hear any footprints following. Looking back, she saw that he was coming... though he kept to the shadows a bit, as if he didn't want to be recognised. Doubt began to creep into her mind a bit, but it wasn't long before they got to her old apartment building.   
He followed her silently until they reached her room, when he timidly looked around. "It's not much, but it's enough..." Cella offered as an excuse. "I'm hoping to move out one of these days, break these stupid habits of mine..." She sighed deeply.   
Looking around a bit more, he walked as silently as a cat over to the television set in the main room. It looked older than the apartment itself. He put one three-digit hand on it and looked at her questioningly.   
"Sorry, no, it don't work. Hasn't for ages. Haven't got the cash to call up someone to fix it." Blue looked at it with interest and shrugged.   
"Anyway, make yourself at home. Don't suppose you've got any money?"   
He shook his head, then looked at the TV, his face turning thoughtful. He mimed working, getting paid.   
"You've got a job?" He shook his head, then nodded when she continued, "Or you'll get one?"   
She watched him as he looked around a bit more, then continued. "You don't mind sleeping on the couch? It's all I've got apart from my room, and I don't quite feel I know you quite that well yet..."   
Blue grinned and nodded, clearing a few discarded bottles and cigarettes packets off the couch with a slight expression of disgust, but then bounced up and down on it a couple of times and pulling up a soft cushion and lying down.   
His legs stretched over the end of the couch by over a foot, well before his knees. She moved towards her room, but stopped at the door and turned back. It had been bugging her, she still hadn't clicked as to...   
"What are you?"   
He looked at her, his face upside down from where he lay. He made a very quick signing before collapsing back to rest. She tried to work out what he'd said under her breath.   
"Mew... two?" She whispered as she moved into her room. Mewtwo? 

~-~-~-~ 

Artic was slowly but surely going insane.   
Trapped in her own mind. No free will. No control. She couldn't do anything.   
All she could think about was Damian.   
She wanted to murder him. Freeze him solid, shatter him into a thousand pieces. Tear his throat open. Gouge his eyes out. _If only the dream had been true..._   
There had to be something, some way... _Hmm... telepathy!_ Yes... Maura had said she'd told them the plan... she could contact them psychically. Thinking quickly, she tried to formulate some sort of plan... there had to be something they could do...   
_Can anyone hear me?_ She projected her voice to Silver, hoping like hell it could get through...   
There was a pause, too long... then a faint reply. _Just. Is that you, Artic?_   
_ Yes! I've got an idea... listen, there's six of us and four of you... There's no way you'll beat us by yourselves. You have to get help. No matter how many legendaries he may have, if you can call the whole city to help you then you'll be able to take him out!_   
There was another pause, as if Laura was considering something, then _What about you? Are you-_   
_ Listen, there's no point in worrying about us. The only way to do it is to take out that Charizard, once and for all. If I get in your way, do what you have to. It's the only way._   
_ Okay, gotcha._   
Artic sighed with relief in her mind. That wasn't a bad idea. It might just stand a chance of working...   
She realised something was wrong. Her body felt strange. Her first thought was that she was changing to become more pokemon, but as the rather angry-looking face of Damian floated into her vision, she realised what it was.   
She couldn't breathe.   
Her throat was clogged up. Her mind was going into a panic. Damian was holding it back, refusing to let her have any oxygen.   
_So... you asked the Lugia to bring reinforcements?_ Came the Charizard's voice, hovering somewhere between amusement and annoyance. _I don't like it when people give help to my enemy..._   
Artic was in agony now... she couldn't make her body take a breath... her vision was beginning to cloud over...   
_I could easily kill you. If your friends captured you, I could make you kill yourself. Simple. You could get rescued... only to die... and no-one could stop it..._   
He laughed and released his psychic hold. Artic collapsed on the floor, tears streaming from her eyes, gasping wildly for the air she had been deprived of.   
_Never you mind, I've got my own ways to counter such a move..._   
She didn't see him stalk away, stare at the others. He wasn't in the mood for training right now, so he was letting them lounge about a bit. But he had noticed the change in them. The wings were longer, the fingers less... the shape of their bodies were changing... the legs shrinking slightly... they were all becoming more birdlike. Sammy seemed about stable at present, hanging on the brink of the final drop. Chadran was changing a little slower than the girls, but it was still quite noticable. He hadn't noticed any change in himself. Yet.   
_I don't understand what could be causing this..._ He thought carefully. _I wonder if the pokeballs will work if they go fully pokemon?_

~-~-~-~ 

Inside their laboratory, the scientists Jack and David had been becoming increasingly frustrated over the time they'd been working on finding either a cure or a cause for the transformation from comparitively stable anthro pokemon to insane bloodthirsty full pokemon.   
Their team had gradually dwindled one by one, and an air of fear hung heavy in the air, everyone dreading that they would be the next to drop into insanity. The two fiery canines knew that the changes had begun to take place in them, but they were still two of the most stable.   
"This just isn't fair!" Jack slammed his fist down on the table, unbalancing the careful alignment of the powerful microscope that he'd been staring into, and angering him further.   
"For once, I agree with you." David said from the chair he sat in. He wasn't examining anything at present, just thinking. "Calm down. We need to think about this... let's run through what we know...   
"There's no real physical reason this should happen. It would make sense if the pokemon cells were attacking or absorbing the human ones... but they're not. The changes aren't continual, they happen in bursts of varying lengths."   
"That sounds about right."   
"Right... from what we've seen, the changes aren't caused by something physical within the body. So what choices does that leave us?"   
"It may be mental, emotional..."   
"...or caused by some outside force."   
"An outside force?" Jack groaned. "That would be nearly impossible to prove."   
"So let's have a look at the other two first." David paused for a moment while he considered. "First idea - acting, thinking, or reacting like the pokemon."   
"You know that can't be it. We've already checked - though it is true in many cases, there are a lot of cases where they weren't acting like a pokemon."   
"I know, I'm just running through our ideas. Bear with me..."   
"Wait... I think I've got something..."   
"Hmm?"   
"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way... Maybe we should stop looking for reasons we're becoming more pokemon and start looking for reasons we're becoming less human?"   
"So... you think it's not acting more like the pokemon that does it... but less like yourself?"   
He shrugged. "It's worth a try, isn't it?"   
"That's not actually a bad idea." David grinned. "Alright. Spread the word and see if we can't prove this one right..." 

~-~-~-~ 

Damian gathered the five legendaries with him. "So... any ideas on how we can get the others? Any idea of where they'll be?"   
He stared at Artic, who was still choking slightly from his punishment for her message. She shook her head. "I didn't specify a location."   
"Blue has left." Holly intoned suddenly.   
"What?"   
"Blue teleported out shortly after your conversation with the others. He's now beyond my ability to detect him."   
Damian cursed and hit the wall, then massaged his fist. "Oh well... one more inconvenience to deal with." He growled. "But it'll make capturing the other three much easier... Hmmm..."   
Picking two pokeballs from his deep pocket, he threw them on the floor. A Raichu and an Ivysaur morph emerged, and waited for instructions; the legendaries looked curiously, they hadn't seen these two before. He spoke to the Raichu first.   
"I want you to go out and find an Abra or Kadabra morph, something capable of teleportation. Give him or her a thunderwave to prevent them from escaping,   
knock them around a bit, then capture them and bring them back here." He handed the morph an empty pokeball. "And you can go and find me a Electrode or a Voltorb morph." He handed another to the Ivysaur. "Make sure you're not seen - use the teleporter to get home if you have to. Meanwhile... I've got some preparing to do. It's going to be a big battle soon..." And with that, he recalled all the legendaries. He had someone he had to meet... 

~-~-~-~ 

"So... what are we supposed to do now?" Silver asked.   
"Hmm?" Eric looked up.   
"We're up against an enemy who has six of our friends enslaved and thus a two-to-one advantage over us in numbers. So we should recruit a few friends..."   
"Right."   
"So where do we start?"   
"Well, I suppose we could go door-to-door knocking..."   
There was a pause as they considered this. "If we get desperate, maybe. But I'd prefer to avoid that for now."   
"Go to the media, maybe?"   
"Hey, that's not a bad idea... get 'em to put it over the TV... What are you doing, Thunder?" She looked to Richie, who hadn't been participating so far, just checking all his pockets.   
"Looking for something... I think I had my other pair of pants on..." He ran into the next room and came back not long afterwards, holding a card. "Remember when we first found out about the pokeballs, that Jolteon guy gave us his number?"   
"Oh yeah... do you think we should give him a call?"   
"We're gonna need all the help we can get." Eric jumped up. "And if he can tell us how to break the pokeballs, I'm all for it."   
"Right. We'll go talk to him, then see if we can get hold of the media..." 

~-~-~-~ 

"Do you even remember being human?" Derek asked the Persian on the couch, from where he lay on his stomach on the floor. She just looked at him blankly, yawned and stretched as cats will do.   
Derek sighed. The elegant cat which had once been his mother had showed no signs of insanity, of destruction, that many fully-transformed morphs displayed... but no real signs that she had ever been human, either. She stayed at the house - if they were willing to give her free room and board, she wasn't going to complain. Persians were fairly docile beings, only attacking if attacked, challenged, or hungry. The two others in the house, Charmeleon and Rhydon, weren't exactly prey material for the latter, and neither had done the former. They kept her fed, gave her free roam of the house and the entire couch to herself. (Derek couldn't use it without risk of igniting it, and there was little chance of it holding up his father's weight)   
Derek's friend, Ray, a Cyndaquil, had also decided to move in. His single mother had been one of the first to go full-pokemon, and as a Marowak she had the advantage over him in type - not to mention that he couldn't bring himself to attack his mother, no matter what she looked like. So he'd been driven out by the territorial pokemon, and had come running to Derek for a home.   
Both of them had taken to sleeping in one of the bathrooms, as they were the least flammable part of the house - both had to face it, bed sheets were extremely combustible. The tiled floor was rather cold, but a quick wash of a low-level flame fixed that, and once they were lying down their high body heat would keep it that way.   
Derek sighed as his mother fell into a doze. He'd actually caught himself hoping he'd be the next to go... Maybe then he could understand his mother. Besides, his father's Rhydon rock-type hide could stand up to anything he could dish out if he went insane... although if his father went mad, this would spell trouble for the two of them...   
He'd almost gone all the way to pokemon, in a single day. It had been shortly after his mother had lost her humanity, he'd just gone mad and tried to burn the house down. His father had managed to restrain him and put the fires out, and Ray talked him out of it in the end, but it had been costly to his humanity. He looked more like a slightly taller-than-usual charmeleon with clothes on than a human with Charmeleon parts. He couldn't remember much of what had happened that day, but it made him afraid...   
Ray was still mostly unchanged, as was his father. He knew that if Ray went full Cyndaquil, then he might be considered prey for the Persian, but for now he was safe...   
Derek sighed as he watched his mother sleep, reaching out with one hand and stroking her fur, careful not to let his claws damage her. It was confusing. His mother's mind obviously wasn't in there, or if it was it was incapable of response. So what had happened to it? Where was she? 

~-~-~-~ 

A casual observer in the forest that night would have seen a very dark and shady meeting between two figures. But a casual observer would have been torn to pieces by the many, many guards surrounding the place before he got close.   
"You'll let us take the city? Why?" One nearly-black figure asked suspisciously.   
"Motives are not the question here. This benefits us both. You do not want the interference of the legendaries. I do not want the interference of the general populace. If we both do our part, we can easily take out this town. Agreed?"   
In the dark, a pair of red eyes narrowed as their owner considered. "Agreed. But... do not try to double-cross us. We will find you. And it will not be pleasant."   
"I wouldn't dream of it. I will tell you when I am ready..." The other said, and took off into the night. The other stared after him. Why did he want to fight the legend-birds? And how on earth would he do it? 


	11. Chapter 11

Josh hesitated before he reached the end of the alley. He couldn't just walk around outside as a Mewtwo anthro, the only one on the planet. That would defeat his entire reason for fleeing Damian.   
_Hmm...what morphic forms can I project?_ he wondered idly, trying several illusions on himself. A wave at the wall before him, and it was suddenly a reflective surface. After rejecting various ideas, he finally settled on a morphic Rapidash male, set up a psychic force field in case anyone touched him, then went to the hard part: choosing a false name.   
_Now what kind of name would a Rapidash have?_ He ran through several more ideas, then realised, _Eh, no one'll care because I can't talk anyways. This illusion is at the non-speaking point already, just like a normal nearly-full changed Rapidash morph would be. I won't be suspicious at all._   
He decided to go with the name FireRunner, just in case. Then he stepped out into the streets of San Fransisco. 

~-~-~-~ 

A local prison guard on the night shift - an Arcanine morph - sat at his desk, feeling rather bored, thinking about the Moltres morph held within the cell up the hall.   
It was strange, really. Four other legendary morphs had brought her in, unconscious. They'd demanded for a cell - fireproof, for preference. They'd carted her in, utilized the chains that were kept generally for fighting-types - much better to have cells which could cater for various types, more efficient - and, after a short conversation with her, had left, leaving her there.   
He'd checked later, and found that they'd unchained her, but she wasn't making any effort to escape. She just sat on the floor, moping. He'd passed food and water to her, but she had ignored them, just stared at him through the impenetrably thick glass window. Whenever he came by, she was there, staring at him. He'd talked to the other guards about it, and they said the same. _Didn't she sleep?_   
He didn't understand.   
He was still pondering it when he heard a sound from the entrance. _Relief?_ He thought for a moment, then remembered that it was far too early for the shift to be over yet.   
It turned out to be another Arcanine morph, just like himself. He watched the newcomer warily, suspiscious - what would someone be doing here at this time of ni-   
Before he could see it coming, the other swung a heavy kick at his head. Stunned, he was thrown off his chair and some way across the floor, dazed and disorientated.   
The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. Something hit him in the back, and he must've been knocked out or something, because everything went black for a moment, and he couldn't feel anything. But then it was back, and he was standing up. The other guy was just watching him, unmoving.   
He felt himself move over to the switchboard, and look over the switches. He hit one, then closed the cover again, before moving back to his seat. His head moved down, his eyes closed...   
As his head cleared, he started. There was no sign of the other who had attacked him. It had all been a dream, perhaps. His head didn't hurt anymore. But weren't dreams supposed to not hurt?   
His head went to the cover over the switchboard. He was almost afraid to check whether the switch had been changed. His head turned back, rested on his hands, all of their own accord... but he quickly convinced himself that he had moved of his own accord, he just didn't want to check.   
It wasn't until his relief came that he realised it might've been true. He tried to relate his strange story, but found himself unable to. He just said hello and goodbye, and went home.   
He considered waking his wife to tell her about it, but soon found that impossible too. But he found panicking strangely difficult, lethargy overwhelming him.   
His last thought was of the tiny switch on the board, one very rarely used. The one that disabled the anti-psychic field around the jail, preventing the use of psychic blasts to escape, and teleportation to and from the building... 

~-~-~-~ 

"Welcome, last of the legendaries, to my labs..." Jake, the Jolteon anthro, smiled and bowed half-mockingly as he showed them into the huge building.   
It was all rather makeshift, really, but still looked impressive. A group of very tired-looking and bleary-eyed scientists were examining a series of monitors clustered on either side of a hollow column where the yellow/red pokeball sat, leads and scanners all over the place. Another group, a little more interested, worked near another tube, where the previously captured Pidgeot anthro stood, half-floating in the liquid, breathing through a modified mask, wearing nothing more than was necessary for decency and with even more scanners and leads all around.   
The trio looked at him as he stared blankly into the opposite wall. Richie turned to Jake.   
"Have you found out how to break it yet?"   
"I'm afraid we're still not sure..." Jake sighed. "Silph have worked to keep this is a pretty big secret, but... nobody really understands pokeballs that much. They know how to make them, but don't actually know how they work. A pokemon captured by a normal ball is conditioned to accept its master's... well, mastery. It's not a permanent or irreversable thing, usually... and the pokemon, if it's strong-willed, can resist, right?"   
They nodded.   
"If a normal, inhabited pokeball is destroyed, it can severely damage the pokemon's mind, depending on how much it had been conditioned to begin with. Some pokemon don't accept the ball's conditioning because they already admire the capturer... it's all very confusing, and no-one really knows exactly how it works. Got me so far?   
"Well, these balls seem to work in a different way. Human minds are considerably more difficult to reprogram than pokemon ones. So this thing bypasses the mind and takes direct control of the body, leaving the consciousness untouched..." He trailed off, and walked up to the tube to look up at the Pidgeot's blank face. "We've found brain activity in there, so he's still thinking. He's alive and awake and watching us from in there, but completely unable to even twitch a muscle..."   
They shuddered at the thought of this... somehow, it was almost worse than having their minds conditioned to be slaves of the monster. Jake rounded onto them again, continuing his explaination.   
"From what we know, scientists have gone some way into researching what makes the pokeball tick - they've made some upgraded versions, Great Ball and such. I think they might've only been a couple of years off making one that always caught - and working out how to remove pokemon from the effects of pokeballs without damaging the pokemon."   
"...Can't you... release pokemon?"   
"Only the trainer could do that, and only with certain pokemon. And even if it was done, the pokemon would still be slightly under the control of the trainer... there are many cases of such pokemon going insane, because a little thing in the back of their brains keeps telling them that they need to be with their trainer... A pokemon that ran away from his trainer would have the same effect, but it would be stronger, since the trainer hadn't let them officially out of the pokeball."   
"And..." They looked at the ball.   
"This thing is amazingly more complex than the old versions. Several very interesting quirks, too." He sighed. "Most pokeballs are designed to have the thrower imprinted as the designated "catcher", if you will. Shortly after the capture, if the ball changes hands, then the new owner will be impressed, but after that, then whoever threw the ball is the owner of the pokemon, and the pokemon will usually obey them above all others."   
"And this one?"   
"The identity of the owner is directly keyed in. If I used one to capture someone, he'd still be the boss."   
They looked shocked. "Anything else?"   
"I think I know what would happen if the ball was to be destroyed..." He said hesitantly, as if not quite prepared to tell them this.   
"What would happen?"   
"Well, if you destroy a normal ball, then the compusion it creates in the pokemon's mind is immediately removed..." He said slowly. "But what was there earlier isn't replaced. So if you destroy one of these balls, the owner's control of the... uh... 'pokemon' is destroyed, and he wouldn't be able to order them..."   
"But?"   
"It's a fairly good guess that they wouldn't be able to control their body either." He said, cringing for the outburst that he was sure would follow. "They'd end up just like this guy here, a fully aware mind in the body of a vegetable..."   
"What?!" All three of them cried together. He hung his head sadly.   
"I... I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't have told you that... but it would be catastrophic if you destroyed one of the balls, thinking it might save them..."   
"Then how the hell are we supposed to help them?" Eric raged.   
Jake was silent, staring at the floor. Silver gave a horrible groan. The other two looked confused for a moment, then caught on.   
"You... you can't... there must be a-"   
"I'm afraid we're just not sure..." He said sadly. "However, there is one thing we think would probably work..."   
"What?"   
"Killing the master."   
There was silence for a moment. Laura spoke thoughtfully but severely. "Killing the Charizard... I hate to say this, but the idea sounds extremely attractive at the moment."   
"I wouldn't talk about killing so casually, Laura. Remember - it's most likely that before you could get near him you would have to fight off your own friends under his control... and I wouldn't go underestimating him either. I got your friend's psychic image too, just before... anyway, he doesn't exactly look like a pushover. Your power lies in fire, and he's also a fire-type... and he's got the physical strength to back it up. Legendary or not, you probably would not win a fight with him..."   
"Then what are we supposed to do? Just sit around and wait for him to strike? Surrender to his will so he can rule the world with us?"   
"...No. We see if we can make you more powerful."   
"And how do you expect us to do that?"   
"This lab isn't just for experimenting. We've decided it would be best if we all had a bit more battle experience, and so we've been setting up some nice little virtual equipment..."   
"Virtual reality sets?" Thunder asked thoughtfully. "I've heard about them... some trainers who didn't believe in hurting other pokemon or having their own hurt used them to build up experience, right?."   
"That's right. But they never really caught on, for many reasons: Too expensive, not-quite-realistic pokemon, and some attacks damage the sets somewhat. But they've been improving over the years, and we've got a set that's about as good as they get... And if I'm any judge, you're going to need it." 

~-~-~-~ 

Josh walked into the computer store, his illusory hooves clicking on the floor. He was getting used to projecting the illusion of a Rapidash morph, but there was one little problem. He   
couldn't speak like one. And if he used the little Telepathy he had gained control of over the past few hours, he would be seen through immediately.   
Sticking with sign language, he applied for a job as a computer repairman. Luckily, the manager of the store knew sign language and the two were able to communicate rather easily. After an hour of demonstrating his computer skills, he was given his first paycheck and sent home.   
Josh dropped the Rapidash morph illusion as he stepped through the door. _I'm back,_ he called to Cella with his weak telepathy. He still didn't have fine control over it, but enough to   
communicate with.   
"Did you find a job?" the Raichu morph asked as she stepped into the room, a beer can in one hand. She finished it off and tossed the can over her shoulder.   
_ Yes. A computer store downtown,_ he said, reaching into her refrigerator and getting a glass of milk for himself. He didn't drink beer, which was just fine with Cella. All the more for   
her.   
Josh managed to spill only a third of the glass all over his short Mewtwo muzzle, and onto the floor. _Dangit. There's gotta be an easier way to do that._   
"So where do you come from anyway?" Cella asked.   
Josh shrugged, and pointed off east. _Thataway_   
"And why've you come out here?" She asked. He didn't say anything for a moment, as he nuked a ham sandwich with a fine-tuned Psybeam. _Long story._ he said as he munched. _I don't think I could keep talking long enough to explain it all. I'm being hunted..._   
"Hunted?" She jumped up in alarm.   
_Don't worry, they don't know where I am. I teleported randomly - even I didn't know where I was, until you told me._   
She settled down again, uneasily. "What on earth could have a Mewtwo morph on the run like that?"   
He was silent for a moment, then continued. _Believe me, it's worth being afraid of. There's one man at the centre of it, a Charizard morph... a powerful one, at that. Him, by himself, I could probably destroy without breaking a sweat..._   
"But...?"   
_He has pokeballs, capable of holding morphs. He already has six legendary pokemon under his control, maybe more since I left. I don't know enough about my powers to fight back against that many. And even if I could beat them all..._   
"Yes?"   
He turned to her. _They're my friends, Cella. Two of the others he captured - I've known them since I was about two. The others... I used to hate them. But they're in the same position as us now. I can't kill them, for his e~_   
Josh was silent for a moment, before he realised that his telepathy had cut out. He realised he had been wearing himself out between the emotion and the telepathy, and glanced at Cella for forgiveness.   
She was visibly shaken. "I... I never heard of such a thing... How could someone do that?"   
Josh reverted back to sign language, telling her that he was sorry to have scared her so - and pleading with her not to tell anyone of his presence here, something he should've done much earlier.   
She didn't fully understand the guestures, but got the general idea. "Don't worry, I'm fine. And I wouldn't dream of telling anyone you were here..."   
He nodded his thanks, and moved onto the couch to rest. Within seconds, his eyes were closed, his breathing deep and regular.   
Cella slowly walked over to look at his sleeping form - or was it? Under the eyelids, his usually deep purple eyes glowed a light blue... 

~-~-~-~ 

Damian sat meditatively, Holly beside him, as he concentrated on searching the psychic planes. It didn't take long for him to locate the final trio of legendaries. They were battling, and as such their minds were sharp and easy to lock onto, especially Silver.   
But what could they be fighting? Concentrating all Gold's efforts on the scene, he looked out through Silver's eyes...   
He saw a hundred morphs coming at her, snarling and growling, powering up attacks. He gave a slight start - why on earth would she be fighting such beings? As he watched, she unleashed a Hyper beam, cutting down many in their tracks... but so many more moved to attack.   
His attention was pulled from the scene as he felt Holly next to him about to give a message to the psychically-connected Silver, and willed her pain receptors to flare. He felt the pain through the psychic link and reveled in it, but realised his mistake when Silver - also linked - suddenly screeched and collapsed.   
Cursing inwardly, Damian was about to cut the connection when he saw the image in front of him fade and disappear. Something came off Silver's eyes, to reveal three figures - the two   
remaining boys and... a Jolteon?   
He pulled out. Hn... virtual reality training? Interesting idea. So they'd aquired a new ally. What was a Jolteon going to do to him or his ultra-powerful troops?   
Abandoning the four legendaries, Damian set Holly to search for Blue, worldwide. It was technically impossible... but a psychic power as powerful as his wouldn't be too hard to locate...   
Would it? 

~-~-~-~ 

Way off in California, Blue was doing something very similar.   
Though he appeared to be asleep, his mind was simply elsewhere - searching the psychic planes for signs of his friends. Like Damian, he had located the trio of remaining legendaries fairly easily.   
They hadn't been captured yet, that was a relief...   
But even as his psychic searching scanned the town, it touched on something else. He felt his searching probe come into contact with another's, and in a brilliant flash he saw the being   
who had captured his friends, his psychic image superimposed on Holly's.   
His eyes immediately snapped open, and his psychic glow faded away. If he'd felt it, then it had probably felt him... 

~-~-~-~ 

Damian grinned as he let Holly drop the psychic probe. He'd found Josh. Or at least the general direction in which he lay...   
Two figures were standing before him, he realised. His servants. Each held out a pokeball to him.   
Time to leave this city... Josh was a much finer target at present. He recalled all the legendaries. But they wouldn't know. They wouldn't be able to contact their friends, tell them of his plans... 


End file.
